


Sugar & Spice

by IheartJack0023



Category: One Piece
Genre: F/M, Literature, Romance, fan fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-09-18 03:15:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9365600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IheartJack0023/pseuds/IheartJack0023
Summary: Lavi has never put herself first. She's always put her brother before her. She's never had her own dream. She's always been focused on helping her brother achieve his. But now that she's reunited with him after three years, can a certain curly-browed cook on his crew convince her to put herself first for once and have her own dream? [Sanji x OC]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know that the "Luffy's sister" concept is a cliché. And I've noticed that the biggest issue with the concept is that people will introduce the character as his sister and then create no importance to the sibling relationship. I don't plan to do that so please bear with me and give this a chance.
> 
> On a side note, I've decided that the song "Vanilla Salt" by Yui Horie is the perfect song for this fic.

**"After a series of unanticipated events, Portgas D. Ace was killed at Marineford on the scheduled day of his execution by vice-admiral Sakazuki, also known as Akainu.**

**As we had predicted, 'Fire Fist' Ace's planned execution went neither quickly nor orderly. Before his death, there was a massive struggle between the marines and the Whitebeard pirates, the highlight of which was the arrival of the captain of the Straw Hat pirates, Monkey D. Luffy. He, along with several others which included the ex-warlord 'First Son of the Sea' Jinbei and the Revolutionary Commander Emporio Ivankov, made a grand appearance by falling into Marineford from the sky.**

**As 'Straw Hat' Luffy fought his way forward toward 'Fire Fist' Ace, the former revealed that he and 'Fire Fist' were brothers. Fleet Admiral Sengoku 'the Buddha' clarified the statement by announcing that the two were merely adoptive brothers. He followed this by two pieces of shocking information: Portgas D. Ace was the son of the infamous 'pirate king' Gol D. Roger and Monkey D. Luffy is the son of the leader of the Revolutionary Army, Dragon, who is also known as the 'the world's most dangerous criminal'."**

**...**

**"The fate of Monkey D. Luffy is currently unknown. The Navy is unwilling to share any information that they may have on the pirate's whereabouts."**

*******

**[~ 10 Years Prior; Ace, age 10; Luffy, age 7; Lavi, age 6]**

"But Miss Makino," whined a small, black-haired girl sitting on a barstool. She had an empty plate in front of her and frosting all over her mouth. "I have to see him." She pouted as she looked at the older woman.

"I am sorry, Lavi," began Makino from behind the counter of her bar. "But you know that I can't tell you. Mr. Garp said—"

"I don't care what that old fart said!" Shouted Lavi with a furrowed brow as her tiny hands balled up into fists. Makino sighed.

"You have to trust that Luffy is in a safe place," Makino told her.

"No," Lavi replied without hesitation.

"Do you really think that Mr. Garp would leave Luffy somewhere dangerous?" Makino asked.

"Yea. Remember that time when he—"

"Okay, okay. That was not the question that I should have asked. How about this: I know where Luffy is and I know that he is safe. Can you trust my judgement? You know that I would never want any harm to come to your brother." Lavi looked at Makino unblinkingly, the silence of the empty bar hanging heavy between them.

"No," Lavi said with a serious face after a minute or so. "I only trust one person and that's my brother."

"You can be really troublesome," Makino told her with a soft smile. "How about we make a deal?"

"What kinda deal?"

"Well, your grandfather left you here in my care because he wants you to become a proper lady."

"I'm not gonna be one!" Shouted Lavi, standing up on the barstool. She put her hands on her waist and puffed her chest out. " I'm gonna be a pirate with Luffy! I don't care what that old man says!" Makino giggled.

"I will take you to Luffy if you agree to let me teach you some proper etiquette." Lavi's eyes widened at Makino's suggestion. The girl sat herself back down on the stool with a grin.

"Yes! Anything for Luffy!" She shouted.

"But you have to promise me that you will actually listen and learn," Makino told her. Lavi nodded without hesitation.

"What are we waiting for?" She asked. She hopped off the stool and ran around to the other side of the counter, grabbing Makino's hand. Lavi tugged on it and pulled her forward.

"Wait," Makino told her. "Let's at least get you cleaned up first." Lavi pouted at the woman, but complied, not wanting her to decide to go back on the deal.

A short while after, Lavi found herself skipping up the path to Mt. Corvo with Makino just behind her. As soon as she saw the bandit house, she ran toward it, stopping right in front of it and shouting Luffy's name at the top of her lungs. The door to the house immediately slid open to reveal an irritated looking woman with orange hair.

"What the hell, you brat?!" The woman narrowed her eyes at the little girl who turned to look at her with a blank expression on her face.

"Where's Luffy?" Lavi asked her. The woman opened her mouth to tell the child to go away when she saw Makino walk up to them.

"Hello, Miss Dadan," she said to the orange-haired woman. Dadan closed her mouth and gulped at the sight of the younger woman. She hesitantly turned her attention back to the girl who was looking at her with frustration.

"D-don't tell me this is another one," said Dadan.

"Don't worry, Miss Dadan. We are only here to visit." Dadan sighed in relief.

"Where's Luffy?!" Lavi asked again, stomping one foot on the ground, with angry features set on her face.

"The brat went out hunting with Ace and Sabo."

"Ace and Sabo?" Lavi asked with a tilt of her head, but before Dadan could answer, Luffy's loud voice interrupted the conversation.

"Lavi!" He shouted, causing said girl to turn around to see her brother rushing toward her. Her face brightened up and a grin that rivalled his appeared on her face.

"Luffy!" She shouted back and started running toward him as well. The two meeting in a tight hug. Luffy's straw hat, too big for his childish head, slid back and off, hitting the floor. At the sound, Lavi pulled away with wide eyes.

"Your hat!" She squealed, picking it up and dusting it off before handing it to Luffy.

"Shishishi," Luffy laughed. "It's fine." He placed the hat back on his head.

"But it's your precious hat!"

"Luffy, who's this?" Asked a voice that Lavi didn't recognize. She turned around to see two other boys that looked older than both her and Luffy—one of them had black hair and had freckles while the other one was blond and had a missing tooth.

"Oh," she said. "You must be the other two that the old lady said. Umm," she trailed off, looking deep in thought for a few moments. "That's right! Icing and Soufflé," she said with a grin on her face.

"What the hell?!" Shouted the freckled one. "Those aren't even names!" Luffy and the blond one laughed in the background.

"They can be if they want to be!" Lavi shouted back at him. The two glared at each other.

"Guys," Luffy announced, "this is my little sister, Lavi!"

"What?!" Shouted both older boys and Dadan simultaneously. Dadan started to mumble to herself nervously in the background.

"You never told us you had a sister," said the freckled boy while the blond walked up to her.

"My name is Sabo," he told her. "And he's Ace," he said pointing to the one with freckles.

"See," Lavi said, elongating the last two letters. "I was close."

"Not at all!" Yelled Ace. The two started to glare at each other again.

"You wanna fight?" Challenged Lavi. Ace scoffed and looked away from her.

"I'm not gonna fight a little kid," he said.

"You're a kid too!" She shouted and then jumped on top of him, sending a punch at his face. Ace dropped his pipe as he fell back onto the floor with Lavi on top of him.

"Lavi!" She heard Makino's voice call in the background, but she ignored it as Ace growled and tried to push her away. Much to Ace's surprise, since he could easily do it with Luffy, he could not push her away. So instead, he punched her in the gut. She yelped, but retaliated by punching him in the chest, which slightly winded him. The two scuffled for a few more moments until Lavi felt something pulling her back.

"Lavi!" She heard Luffy's voice shout to her. It caused her to relax and let herself get pulled backward by, who she later saw was, Sabo. She panted heavily, feeling places where bruises would form and looked over at Ace who was in the same condition.

"I won that fight!" She exclaimed.

"That wasn't a fight!" Cried out Ace. "You attacked me outta nowhere!"

"So? That's what pirates do!"

"You can't be a pirate! You're a girl!" He argued.

"Girls can so be pirates! I'll prove it to you! Fight me!" Sabo stepped in between Lavi and Ace with a sigh.

"Guys," Luffy whined. "Stop fighting." But neither party wanted to listen.

***

**[10 Years Later; Lavi, age 16]**

Everything was still except for the slight quivering of her lower lip. Her head was tilted downward, facing the newspaper that was set on the bar counter before her. The angle caused the bill of the green and white baseball cap on her head to shade her eyes.

**"Portgas D. Ace was killed at Marineford".**

The moment she read those words, everything else ceased to exist. Everything went still and everything went silent. Her eyes scanned across the rest of the article, but they always, always, came back to those seven words.

**"Portgas D. Ace..."**

She was oblivious to the barkeep that had raised her giving her constant worried glances and to the orange-haired woman next to her, drinking like there was no tomorrow. She was oblivious to the rest of the bandits around her and to the commotion that was going on outside. None of those things mattered.

"...was killed..."

Her hands, which had been clasped together on her lap, had tightened their grip on the other and her nails were digging deeply into her skin—deep enough to draw out blood. But blood was fine. As long as she didn't cry, it was fine. She couldn't let herself succumb to that.

**"...at..."**

If she hadn't cried when Sabo had died then she wouldn't cry when Ace had either; she still had one brother left. She still had one more person that she needed to be strong for.

**"...Marineford".**

She needed to be strong for Luffy.

Lavi gasped as the world started to move around her again. She lifted her head and let her eyes wander around the bar as she took in deep breaths. Where had everyone gone, she wondered.

_And why did it hurt to breathe?_

She looked down at her hands to see nail marks and blood on them. She sighed as she forced herself up off of the bar stool.

_Heavy. Why did her body feel so heavy?_

She walked around the counter to the sink that lay behind it and washed her hands with warm water.

_Cold. Why did she feel so cold?_

She rubbed her eyes with the warm water before turning the faucet back off. Then she noticed the sound of crying—shouting and crying. She turned to look at the door of the bar and saw that whatever is was, it was coming from whatever commotion was going on outside.

She dragged herself to the entrance of the bar and stepped outside. She was met by the sight of a bloody Garp in the grip of a furious Dadan whose arm was being held onto by Makino.

"Stop it, Miss Dadan!" Makino shouted. Lavi's blank eyes ran over each person in the scene, but those blank eyes became consumed with bitter anger when they landed on her 'grandfather'.

Dadan put down the arm that she had been intending to use to hit Garp again and then let go of the man. Makino moved from Dadan's side to stand in between the two and stretched out her arms in an attempt to shield Garp from the mountain bandit's wrath.

"Can't you see that he is taking it harder than anybody else because he could not help them even though he was there?!" Shouted Makino.

"Bullshit," Lavi said, drawing everyone's attention to her. "That is bullshit!" She shouted, her eyes dead set on Garp. "If you were there you could have helped him! There are no excuses! I don't give a damn about who you work for, but when the people you truly care about are in danger then you drop everything and help them! When the people you truly care about are about to die then nothing else matters! Would you have done the same if it were Luffy? Would you have done the same if it were me? Would you have just stood there and watched us die?!"

The crowd of people that had gathered had gone dead silent at the girl's angry words. Garp had hung his head down in shame. At that moment, he couldn't stomach looking his granddaughter in the eye. Lavi scoffed and turned to look at Makino and lowered her voice back to a reasonable volume.

"Could not help even though he was there? No. He could have. He just decided that his damn job was more important," she hissed and turned her attention back to Garp. "Just like that damn man they decided to call my father. You want to act like him? Fine. Then I'll treat you the same way that I treat him."

She took a deep breath before saying the next six words. Her words caught in her throat for a second. Something in the back of her mind was telling her 'no', but her mind was too clouded by rage to listen to that faint voice of reason, so she said it.

"I no longer consider you family."

Garp squeezed his eyes shut and dug his fingers into the fabric of his pants. He had seen this coming; had known her well enough to know that she would react this way. But having expected it to happen didn't make it hurt any less.

He heard the words of a younger version of her echoing her present ones:

_"Why would I be happy to see you? You're just going to leave again anyway! You're a terrible grandpa so just leave me alone!"_

A tense silence settled over everyone. Lavi had turned around, giving her back to Garp and stood with her arms crossed against her chest as her hat shaded her eyes. Makino, who had brought down her arms, looked over at Lavi with deep concern.

"Garp," said the mayor hesitantly, breaking the silence. "What happened to Luffy? It said in the newspaper that he went missing."

"Mayor," said Garp, lifting his head to look at the man that he was addressing. Everyone in the crowd looked over at the marine, eager to hear what he would say. "He got away by submarine. The Navy went after him full force and searched for him desperately but they didn't find any shipwreck so he's probably alive." The spirits of the townsfolk seemed to lift at the news, easing some of the tension.

"Probably?" Questioned Lavi, turning everyone's attention back to her. "No. Luffy is definitely alive. Do not underestimate my brother. He would not die that easily." She sighed and walked back into the bar.

Only a few more months, she told herself. Only a few more months and she would be 17. And then—then she could set sail; then she could find her brother.  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided not to use honorifics, because it's easier not to, except with Sanji because things like "Nami-swan~" have to exist. I feel like it's too much a part of his character to remove it.
> 
> Furthermore, I'm going to be using a mixture of (traditional) Japanese and Western etiquette practices because of several reasons: (1) Western etiquette has more pronounced gender distinctions (which works better for this story); (2) as a westerner, it's just way easier for me; and (3) because this is fanfic so I can. The sky is the limit~

**[12 Years Ago; Luffy, age 7; Lavi, age 6]**

Red-haired Shanks sipped at his mug of beer heartily as he watched his crew joke around with each other. The sound of the bar doors swinging open caught his attention and he turned to see Luffy holding onto the wrist of a a girl who was slightly smaller than him. He immediately noticed their resemblance and realized that she must have been the sister that Luffy had told him about. Shanks put his beer mug aside and looked at her questioningly as she stomped her way toward him with a look of fury on her face. Luffy, on the other hand, was struggling to pull her back, away from her destination, but miserably failing. She stopped abruptly in front of Shanks, stomped her left foot down hard on the floor, and pointed an accusatory fingers at Shanks.

"You!" She shouted at him with a glare. "Fix my brother!"

"What?" Asked Shanks, unsure about what the girl was going on about.

"Lavi," whined Luffy. "There's nothing wrong with me!" Lavi grabbed onto Luffy's nose, without even turning around to face him, and pulled it forward. Everyone in the bar watched his nose stretch for a moment before she let it go. It bounced back to his face with a resounding snap.

"Ow!" Shouted Luffy, finally pulling his hand away from his sister. He placed both of his hands over his nose as he rubbed it.

"Shut up," said Lavi, not removing her eyes from Shanks'. "That didn't hurt you."

"Ah," said Shanks thoughtfully. "I can't fix him because he's not broken."

"Normal people aren't supposed to stretch! Fix him or I'll beat you up!" Lavi threatened. Shanks chuckled at the little girl's exuberance.

"You can't beat up Shanks!" Shouted Luffy. "Shanks is really strong!"

"I'm strong too! And I can beat up anyone that messes with my big brother!" She exclaimed as she balled her small hands into fights.

"Woah, woah," said Shanks. "Relax. There will be no beating up here." Lavi huffed and relaxed her hands when she caught Makino sending the girl a chastising look. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away from the red-haired pirate.

"I thought the older sibling was supposed to be the protective one," joked Shanks which only elicited a growl from the girl. Shanks put his hands up as if to show her that he wasn't a threat.

"Oh, don't mind her," said Makino tensely. "She is always picking fights. She doesn't mean any harm."

"How does someone who picks fights all the time not mean any harm?" Asked Yasopp as he lounged about on a chair.

"Lavi only fights bad guys like people who are mean to me," defended Luffy as he moved to stand next to his sister rather than behind her. "So that makes her a good guy!" Lavi puffed up her cheeks as she blushed at Luffy's comment. Shanks chuckled at the pair before moving to squat down in front of Lavi. Lavi deflated her cheeks as she turned to look at him with an angry look back on her face.

"Your brother ate a devil fruit," explained Shanks, "which is what's given him the ability to stretch. Of course, it also prevents him from being able to ever swim again."

"How is my brother supposed to be a pirate now if he can't swim?!" Shouted Lavi angrily.

"Hey. It wasn't my fault. He opened the chest it was in and ate it without my permission." Lavi aimed a punch at Shanks, which he easily dodged.

"Don't put the blame on him! Who leaves something that dangerous just lying around?!"

"She does have a point there," said Ben. Shanks sighed.

"How old are you?" He asked her.

"Six!" She exclaimed.

"You're too smart for a six-year-old," he told her.

"You're just mad I was right!" she said with a grin and stuck her tongue out at him.

"You're a bit of a brat," he told her causing her to scowl.

"And you look like a tomato," she retorted.

"Lavi!" Whined Luffy. "You can't say that to Shanks!"

"I can say whatever I want to Tomato-head," she said, her scowl turning into a smug smirk. She caught Makino giving her a stern look again.

"Oh, I mean, Mr. Tomato-head," she amended.

"That is not what I meant, Lavi," Makino squeaked out.

"Definitely a brat," muttered Shanks.

***

**[Present; Luffy, 19; Lavi, 18]**

Lavi was seated on top of one of the buildings of Fishman Island next to where the ship that belonged to the Straw Hat Pirates was anchored. She entertained herself by blowing bubbles from the gum that she was chewing, only to let them pop right after, and watching the black flag with their jolly roger, flailing in the wind.

One of the crew's members was on board: Cyborg Franky, who, even though he looked much different from the picture on his wanted poster, she could still recognize. She had considered making her appearance to him—she was certainly more than excited to find out what kind of cool stuff he could do with that cyborg body of his—but decided that it was best to pop up when her brother was there.

She looked down at her sneakers as she thought about him—how much has he changed, she wondered.

She was snapped out of her thoughts when she heard a mass of voices coming her way. She looked toward the source and saw a large crowd walking in the direction of the ship. She had a feeling that whatever was causing such a large crowd had to be related to her brother.

As the crowd grew closer, she spotted a familiar straw hat. She let her signature grin cross her face as she stood up. Three years, she thought. She was finally going to see her brother against after three long years. She stood up and stretched her arms upward. She pulled her wooden bat out of its black 'sheath', that was slung over her abdomen and going across her torso, and leaned it on her left shoulder. She scanned the crowd as they neared and picked out each of the Straw Hat crew members as she recognized them; she looked at her brother last. She was glad to see that he seemed happy, but she couldn't ignore the scar on his abdomen—she knew that it was from Marineford.

Once she deemed that Luffy was close enough, she leaped forward and succesffuly landing on top of her brother, knocking him down in the process. When she heard the sound of a blade being drawn, she immediately lifted up her bat and blocked in just in time. Her eyes met the one of Roronoa Zoro.

"Eh?" Said Luffy in confusion as he stood up. "Lavi?"

"You know this girl, Luffy?" Zoro asked him.

"Yeah," he replied. Lavi's eyes sent a challenging look to Zoro before Zoro pulled back and resheathed his sword. Lavi brought her bat back down and, feeling that she wasn't going to be in anymore danger, decided to put it back into it's sheath. Before anyone could say anything, Lavi started shouting at Luffy.

"You idiot!" She screamed at him. "Do not just disappear like that for two years—TWO YEARS—without telling me where the hell you are going!" She reached out and grabbed his nose; she pulled it forward a few inches before letting it go causing it to snap against his face.

"Ow," whined Luffy, rubbing his nose. "I didn't think that you'd mind." Lavi's eye twitched at her brother's stupidity.

"You knew that I would be setting sail and that I was planning to find you when I did!" Luffy set his lips into a pout.

"I'm sorry, Lavi." Lavi sighed.

"You are such a troublesome brother, you know that?"

"Ehh? Brother?!" Shouted the crowd collectively. Lavi turned to the crowd with a small, polite smile.

"Hello, everyone. My name is Monkey D. Laveer, but please call me Lavi," she said with a short bow. "Thank you for taking care of my big brother."

"W-w-what?!" Nami sputtered out.

"B-b-brother?!" Added Usopp.

Lavi raised an eyebrow at the sight of a blond man spinning toward her. She popped her gum as he stopped right next to her and kneeled down on one knee. He grabbed onto her right hand.

"I am honored to meet a lady such as yourself," he said. Lavi's left eye twitched at his words. He stood up, but kept her hand in his. "Though I can't understand how such a lady could be related to—."

He stopped as she grabbed onto his tie and pulled his face down so that it was level with hers. Her eyes bore into his as she popped her gum again. He felt his heart start to race at the close proximity. He noticed that she smelled sweet—like sugar.

"Do not call me a lady," she growled at him. "I am not." She pushed him back as she let go of his tie, creating a distance between the two of them. Sanji stared back at her with wide eyes, unsure of how to respond.

"Amazing," said Zoro. "She was able to make the idiot cook shut up for once. I'm starting to like her already."

Sanji ignored the swordsman's words, though. He was too focused on the black-haired girl before him. This was a first for him. Women got mad at him for flirting with them, not because he called them a lady. He pulled out a cigarette and placed it between his lips before lighting it. In fact, he thought, she didn't seem to be bothered at all by his other actions.

While Sanji was lost in his thoughts, the rest of the crew found themselves reacting to the newfound information as the Fishman crowd behind them talked amongst themselves.

"It seems like there's still a lot we don't know about our captain," said Robin.

"They do have that same grin," said Usopp.

"I wonder how much they're alike," said Chopper.

"Hopefully not that much," said Nami. "There's no way I can handle two Luffys at once."

"I'm so surprised," said Brook, "that my eyes are popping out of my head. Oh, wait, I don't have any eyes! Yohohoho!"

"I'm feeling," said Franky, getting into his signature pose, "eeextra suuupeeer now. Don't worry, little sis. Big bro Franky is here for you."

"Excuse me, miss," said Brook politely. "May I see your panties?"

"No," deadpanned Lavi. Brook fell to the floor, a deppressed aura settling over him. "Luffy," said Lavi, drawing a distracted Luffy's attention to her. "I will be joining your crew now, then," she said to Luffy.

"Okay," said Luffy.

"That casually?!" Shouted everybody. Lavi and Luffy broke out into laughter.

"Oi, Luffy," said Zoro. "Anymore siblings that might pop up out of nowhere?" Luffy made a face as if he were in thought.

"Nope," he answered after a moment with a grin.

"Well, we should get going, guys!" Shouted Nami. Everyone agreed.

***

**[Some time later; on the Thousand Sunny, back at sea level]**

"I bet you have all kinds of cool weapons in your body, right?" Lavi asked Franky with sparkling eyes. Franky grinned at the girl.

"Of course," he told her. "I've got all kinds of suuupeeer things." He revealed to her the cannon that was hidden in his arm and watched her gasp in amazement.

"That. Is. So. Coooool," she said, emphasizing each word. Then he revealed to her how each of his fingers were like guns, able to fire bullets, and how he housed missiles in both of his shoulders, which only made her excitement grow. Franky's face grew serious before speaking his next words.

"Now, press down on my nose for three seconds," he said. Lavi gave him a curious expression, but, nonetheless, did as he asked.

She jumped back when the three seconds passed and his hair started to change. She stared at him blankly for a few seconds as she processed the added feature to his body, but once she had, she broke out into a grin.

"That is definitely the best one that you have shown me," she told her. Franky grinned.

"You're making me feel extra suuupeeer today," he said as he struck his signature pose. Lavi giggled at the action.

"Oh my god," Nami started in the background. "She's like Luffy."

Lavi, satisfied with what she had learned about the cyborg, walked toward Chopper who shuffled nervously when she sat down in front of him.

"I heard you like cotton candy," she said. Chopper nodded hesitantly. Lavi gave him a smile and dug into her messenger bag. She pulled out two packages and handed one to Chopper. He read the label and lit up when he saw that it said 'Cotton Candy'. He looked back to her to see the packaging of hers open and cotton candy in her mouth.

"Thank you!" Chopper shouted excitedly, all nervousness now gone.

"Anything for a fellow cotton candy lover, Doctor Chopper."

"Idiot! Calling me doctor won't make me happy!" He said with a smile on his face.

"Lavi," whined Luffy, rolling on the floor toward her. "Do you have one for me?" Lavi rolled her eyes and pulled out a third one for her brother. "Yipee!" He shouted as he grabbed at it. He sat up next to her.

"You're the best sister I have!"

"I am the only sister you have," she said. Luffy opened the package of cotton candy and ate it in one bite.

"You are going to get a stomachache," Lavi told him. Luffy ignored her forewarning and stood up, pulling her with him.

"Hey, I am not done with my cotton candy!" She exclaimed as he pulled her somewhere.

"Okay," he said and grabbed the cotton candy out of her hand, eating it in one bite. Her jaw dropped.

"I know three years is a long time, but there is no way that you have forgotten rule number one." Luffy's eyes widened as memories infiltrated his mind. He let go of her wrist and took a step back. "You better run, Luffy," she said in a dark voice. Luffy didn't hesitate to follow her advice. She ran after him, running all around the ship as Luffy used his devil fruit powers to his advantage.

"I knew it," cried Nami as she watched the two knock things over as they ran across the deck. "It's going to be like having two Luffys on bored." Tears fell down her face.

"I'm sure it won't be that bad," Robin assured her. "She's already shown us that she's more well-mannered than him."

Nami calmed herself down and looked back at the two siblings in time to see Lavi tackle Luffy down to the ground. Luffy stretched his arm out and grabbed onto one of the railings of the ship. He tried to pull himself forward and away from his sister's grasp, but her hold on him prevented him from doing so. The two rolled around on the deck as Luffy kept trying to escape.

"It will," said Nami as a depressed atmosphere settled around her. "It will be terrible."

"How many times do I have to tell you not to eat my sweets without my permission?!" Lavi shouted at Luffy as she stretched out his cheeks.

"Ih shawy wavi," he said.

"Sorry will not make more cotton candy magically appear!" She hit him on the top of the head.

"Ow," he whined. She froze as she saw blue cotton candy on a cone appear right in front of her face. She gasped and a grin spread across her face. She looked up to see where the cotton candy had magically appeared from and saw that it was Sanji that was offering it to her. She gladly accepted the sweet.

"Thank you, Mr. Sanji!" She said politely. She stood up off of Luffy and took a bite out of the cotton candy.

"Anything for you, Lavi-chwan~" Sanji gushed.

"You got lucky this time, Luffy," Lavi told him before walking away. Luffy sighed in relief.

Sanji pulled out a cigarette as he watched her walk toward Usopp and Chopper and then lit it. He had been watching her since the moment she had pushed him away; had been unable to take his eyes off of her for very long since that moment. She was interesting to watch, intriguing—the way she seemed so civil one second (nothing like Luffy) and then so callow the next (exactly like Luffy).

Lavi was sat next to Chopper, who was sitting across from Usopp, immensely enjoying her cotton candy—so much better than the store bought one that she was eating before, she realized—when Robin walked up to her.

"Excuse me," she started, causing her to look up at the tall woman. "If you don't mind me asking, weren't you the first mate of the Bonney pirates?" Lavi swallowed a mouthful of cotton candy.

"Yes," she said. "But only until I found Luffy. We had made that deal when I joined her crew." Robin hummed thoughtfully.

"Ah, Lavi," Luffy whined, dragging himself toward his sister. "Do you have a bounty?" He pulled himself up and sat across from Lavi, next to Usopp. Lavi pulled out a wanted poster from her messenger bag and handed it to Usopp. Luffy leaned over to look at it.

"Eh?" Shouted Usopp. "120,000,000 beri?! That's the same as Zoro!" Lavi licked her lips as she finished her cotton candy.

"I was the first mate of a supernova," Lavi justified with a shrug.

"According to the news," started Robin, "you also cause a lot of damage to the places that you go."

"Not my fault," she told Robin. Luffy laughed.

"Lavi always used to break things when we were little," he told everyone.

"Did not," argued Lavi.

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did—"

"Shut up!" Shouted Nami as she punched them both on top of the head.

"Ow," they both whined at the same time. The rest of the crew found themselves crowding around Usopp to get a look at the wanted poster. The picture was a close up of her face; she had a lollipop in her mouth while she gave the camera a huge grin.

"It kinda looks like Luffy's wanted poster," Franky pointed out. The crew collectively shivered.

"It's actually scary how alike the two of them are," said Zoro. Sanji sent a kick at the swordsman who blocked it with his sword. Zoro's eye twitched as he glared at the cook.

"Don't insult a woman like that. Lavi-chwan is too delicate to be scary~." Lavi ignored his comment.

"Ah," began Brook. "May I ask why you are called 'Iron Fist' Lavi?" Lavi averted her eyes from everyone and laughed uncomfortably.

"I guess you could say that I have got a bit of a strong arm," Lavi explained while scratching her cheek. Luffy nodded.

"Lavi punches really hard," he added as he hit his left palm with his right fist. "Gramps always says that she gets her strength from him." The crewmembers' eyes widened save for Robin, Sanji and Brook, who had no eyes to widen.

Sanji noticed that at the mention of 'Gramps', she had slightly flinched. It didn't seem like the others had noticed, but they were not watching her as closely as he was.

"So you got some monster strength then or something?" Questioned Zoro. Just as he finished the question, he found a foot heading toward his head (again). He swiftly pulled out one of his swords (again) causing said foot to hit against the weapon rather than his face.

"The hell is your problem, you curly browed bastard?" Zoro growled out as his sword and Sanji's foot pushed against each other.

"Don't refer to a lady as monstrous, you—," started Sanji, but he was cut off by a punch to the head which left him dazed for a few moments.

"I thought I told you not to call me a lady!" She growled out with a vicious look in her eyes.

"Heh, I'm really starting to like you," Zoro told her with a grin.

"Hmm?" Lavi turned back to look at Zoro while Sanji rubbed his head—now, Sanji was used to being hit, especially on the head; that was inevitable with a woman like Nami around, but this was different. Because when Nami did it, it didn't really harm him; no, he had been through far worse. But this one—it actually, really fucking hurt.

'She gets her strength from Garp, huh?' Sanji thought as he stepped back and away from the crew who were half conversing, half arguing, half joking—the usual. He pulled out another cigarette out of the pack that he kept in his pocket, watching his crew, watching her, as he lit it.

"What do you mean you do not like chocolate?!" She shouted at Zoro. "How is that even possible?!"

"It's too sweet," he replied. Lavi gasped dramatically.

"How dare you, Mr. Kusamochi!" Zoro's eye twitched at the name.*

"What the hell did you just call me?!" He roared.

"I accept your challenge to fight, Mr. Kusamochi!" She exclaimed, putting her hands on her hips and puffing her chest out.

"I didn't challenge you!" He retorted.

"I'm sure everyone else here can vouch for me that you have!" She was met by a chorus of "no's".

Sanji couldn't help the smile that formed on his face at the interaction—she fit in _perfectly._

***

Lavi hesitantly walked toward the kitchen—or what she believed was the kitchen based off of Luffy's verbal 'tour'; since the crew had finally settled back into some sort of normalcy, Lavi decided to use the time to go check out what would be, she assumed, one of her favorite rooms on the ship.

She entered as quietly as she could, softly shutting the door behind her. Her nose wrinkled as she entered the room, not liking much the smell of spices that filled it.

"Excuse me, Mr. Sanji," she said softly as she walked toward him. She stopped before she entered what would be considered the actual kitchen area, as opposed to the dining area. Sanji, who had been in the middle of preparing dinner, turned around at the sound of her voice with a surprised look on his face. She waited patiently for him to say something before speaking again; it took a few seconds since he hadn't heard her come in which caused a delay in his reaction.

"Lavi-chwan~," he called to her in a sing-song voice. "Are you hungry? Dinner will be ready in a few more minutes." Lavi gave him a reserved smile as she shook her head slightly.

"Sorry, but I am actually not very hungry, Mr. Sanji," she told him softly. "I actually wanted to ask you something."

"Anything for a lovely woman like you," he said, avoiding the word 'lady'. He turned some of his attention back to the cooking food and told her, "Ask away~".

"Would you allow me to use your kitchen?—not now, but at some other time." Sanji raised his visible eyebrow at her, turning to face her while continuing to move around the vegetables on the pan as he sauteed them. He wasn't really expecting her to ask something in particular, but he wasn't expecting her to ask something of that nature.

"You can use it whenever you want. I'd be honored to have your presence grace this kitchen." Her eyes lit up at his words and her smile grew.

"Really?" She asked. "Thank you!" She slightly bounced on her feet and opened her mouth to say something else, but before any words left her, she closed it back up and stilled herself. She looked down at the floor briefly and let out a breath.

It was like she was reigning herself in, thought Sanji. He lowered the fire of the stove and stepped back from the stove slightly. Pulling out a cigarette, and lighting it, he continued to watch her as a slight pout settled on her lips. It was strange, thought Sanji. She had just been running around and shouting without a care, but it seemed like now she was trying her hardest not to do that.

'Why?' Sanji thought. 'She looks like she's trying not to say the wrong thing. And it can't be because of me; she had no trouble scolding me earlier.'

"May I have a look around?" She asked him.

"Of course," he told her. With that, she stepped forward, hesitantly, into the kitchen and looked around at all of the equipment that it contained. The way she looked at the kitchen made Sanji's breath catch in his throat—because it wasn't the way that Luffy looked at it (drooling, mostly) nor the way that even Nami did (with a hint of apathy). It was the way that he himself looked at it—like it wasn't just a kitchen; like it was a sanctum; a place of inspiration and wonder.

Sanji's thoughts were interrupted by his captain shouting on the deck.

"Chopper!" Luffy wailed. "My stomach hurts!" The cook heard Lavi sigh beside him.

"He never listens to me," she said while shaking her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Kusamochi (lit. "grass mochi") is a seasonal (green) Japanese sweet made from mochi and Japanese mugwort leaves or Jersey Cudwood.  
> 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dream here is actually really symbolic. You can go check out a dream dictionary if you're curious about the symbols. (There are several online)
> 
> If you've seen Bee & Puppycat (and if you haven't you should go watch it right now; it's on YouTube): there's a reference to it in this chapter. Shout out to anyone who can catch it~

The little girl yawned as her blurred vision started to clear. She was confused at first, but relaxed when she realized where she was. She looked down the flight of stairs as another yawn escaped her mouth.

_Was it morning?_

She went to grab the railing of the staircase with her left hand, but, after finding herself unable to, noticed that the attached arm was in a cast. Her brow furrowed in confusion.

_I do not remember getting this._

She shrugged it off after a moment and noticed that she was wearing a ruffled green dress with dress shoes. She pouted at the outfit.

_Why does Miss Makino keep making me wear dresses?_

She sighed in relief when she realized that her green and white baseball cap was still on her head though; and her eyes lit up when she realized that the dress had pockets. She stuck her left hand in one of them, only to pull out lollipops and glitter.

"Whoa, magic pockets!" She squealed. With a newfound excitement, she skipped down the steps. "Miss Makino? Luffy?" She called out; but she received no answer. A pout settled back onto her lips at the silence that consumed the establishment. She skipped the last step, ending up at the back end of Partys Bar. Her pout disappeared once again when she noticed breakfast laid out for her on the bar counter.

_Miss Makino must have gone out to town!_

She rushed over to the counter, sitting on one of the bar stools, happily, though with difficulty because she was using her left hand, eating her breakfast of crêpes and blueberry cake. She hummed as she chewed, swinging her legs back and forth as they hung over the stool. But she abruptly stopped after a few bites. She swallowed one last bite before frowning.

_Eating alone is not any fun._

She sighed and licked the sweetness from her lips. She froze as she noticed a pack of cards sitting on the opposite side of the counter. She tilts her head as she looks at it.

_I do not know why, but it feels like it should not be there._

Before she can think about it any further she found herself walking toward it. She didn't know why—she didn't decide to do it—but she couldn't stop her body from moving forward. The cards are face down and she picks up the one at the top of the deck. She frowns at the card—the ace of spades.

_Ace. Ace. Ace._

It echoed inside her head over and over and over until—

"Ace!" She shouted with a gasp. A chill ran down her spine.

_Something feels wrong._

"Luffy is probably out with Ace," she told herself. She looked back down at the card in her hand and her frown deepened. She placed it inside her left pocket and made her way outside. She blinked rapidly at the unexpected dark sky.

_I thought it was morning. I just had breakfast—did I not?_

She placed her small left hand against her temple. Her head started to pound; everything started to grow fuzzy and blurry.

_Ace._

She felt cold.

A hand on her shoulder made her jump. She gasped and turned around. A blurred figure stood in front of her, but it quickly cleared up to reveal blue and white. She sighed in relief.

"Sabo!" She cheered.

"Sorry, Lavi. I didn't mean to scare you," he said with a grin, his missing tooth clearly visible.

"You did not scare me!" Lavi said, puffing out her cheeks. "I do not get scared!" Sabo laughed at the girl's reaction.

"You know I can't take you seriously when you do that," he told her. He grabbed her hat, which looked awkwardly large on her small head, by the brim and took it off of her head, only to put it back on with the bill facing forward and pulling it down so that it covered her face.

"Sabo," she whined. Lavi removed the hat and put it back on with the bill facing behind her.

"Have you seen Ace or Luffy?" She asked him. Sabo shook his head.

"No," he answered. Lavi frowned. She tilted her head back to look up at the sky. She watched as stormy clouds started to roll in. As she felt the wind pick up, she grabbed onto her cap so that it wouldn't fly away. Goosebumps popped up on her skin at the touch of the chilled wind. Warmth engulfed her as she felt something draped over her shoulders. She looked up to her right to see a now jacketless Sabo smiling at her.

"Can't let you catch a cold," he told her. "Big brothers are supposed to take care of their little sisters."

"Tell that to Ace," she said. Sabo sighed.

"Ace is a good big brother too," he told her.

"Nuh uh. He is always hitting me."

"Because you're always starting fights with him."

"I do not start them!"

"Lavi," Sabo said with a stern look on his face. Lavi puffed up her cheeks and looked away.

"Whatever," she said.

"Ace is a good big brother too, and he would take good care of you if I wasn't here to do that." Lavi's eyes widened at his words.

_No._

"Do not talk like that!" She shouted at him. "You are always going to be here! You are my best big brother!" Sabo smiled at the girl.

"Luffy is your big brother too, y'know," he reminded her. Lavi huffed at his words.

"He does not count," she told him with a pout. Sabo chuckled at her response.

"Alright, let's go look for the two; it looks like it's gonna start raining soon," Sabo said with his eyes set on the gray clouds above them. Lavi nods and skips forward, Sabo following behind her. They walk in silence for a few minutes. Lavi stops abruptly when she feels a few raindrops land on her hands.

"Huh?" She asks, looking up at the sky. Several more drops hit her face as a light drizzle begins. "Sabo," she said turning around, "I—." She stopped when she saw that the blond wasn't there. "Sabo?" She asked hesitantly. When she received no answer, she started to panic. "Sabo?!" She started to shout more frantically.

_I am scared._

Her breathing grew heavier, faster, and so did the rain. It pounded against her tiny frame and the only thing that shielded her from it was the blue jacket that Sabo had given her and her baseball cap.

_I am so scared._

She jumped at the sound of thunder. The jacket wasn't giving her much protection. She was still getting soaked. She was cold and so alone, but she told herself that she needed to be brave. She always had to.

_I am not allowed to be scared._

She took a a deep breath and forced herself to calm down before continuing to head forward. She wasn't sure how much time had passes, or if time had even passed at all, but she found herself standing in front of her brothers' treehouse.

"Ace! Luffy!" She called out, but she received no answer. She turned around and started to look at the surrounding trees and bushes trying to see if they were hiding there, but she could barely see in front of her with the pounding rain.

_It hurts._

She jumped as she felt a burning sensation in her pocket. She stuck her usable hand in it and pulled out the card from earlier: the ace of spades. It was on fire and burning away.

_Something feels wrong again._

She turned around to see that the treehouse was burning the same exact way that the card was.

_It feels worse than wrong._

She was struck with panic, worried that her brothers might be caught in the fire. But she was also struck with confusion because it was still pouring. How could these fires burn when there was so much water falling on them?

She turned her attention back down to the card in time to watch it turn into ashes. The storm grew even heavier and washed away the ashes from her palm. She felt water hit against her knees and she looked down to see that the water level had risen and that it was still rising. She started to panic again and closed her eyes tightly.

_Please go away._

When she had opened them she found the water reaching up to just under her chin. As it moved up she took in a deep breath, holding it in as the water level rose above her head. She tried her best to kick herself up, but it proved difficult to swim with only one arm.

She heard someone call out her name and she turned around to see Luffy; he looked weak and he looked like he was drowning. Lavi's panic rose.

_No. No. No._

She tried her best to swim over to him, but the cast that covered her dominant arm made it hard for her tiny arms to fight against the current of the water.

_No._

She tried her best to reach out for him as he reached out for her two; but every single time that he seemed to be close enough, he ended up just out of her reach.

_I need to try harder._

She felt her air depleting. She was losing oxygen quickly.

_I cannot. No. I need to get to Luffy._

Her lungs started to burn and her vision started to blur.

_No. Luffy, I am sorry I am not strong enough._

With her last strength she opened her mouth and screamed out for Luffy.

_Why am I never strong enough?_

Water immediately rushed in through her throat.

_Why do I let everyone leave?_

As breathing became impossible, her vision started to go black and then—

Lavi woke up with a start, a scream caught in her throat. Sitting up, she backed up into the headboard of the bed that she had been sleeping on. She pulled her knees into her chest and gripped tightly onto the blanket that was now barely covering her. Gasping for breath, she felt tears prick the corners of her eyes. She buried her head into her knees and her hands into her hair, tugging on it.

'Not again,' she thought. 'Please not again.' It was the same dream. The same exact dream that she had started having after finding out about Ace's death. It had happened over and over and over again, disrupting her sleep—every single night until she finally left Foosha. Then she never had it again—until now.

"I will not cry," she whispered to herself. "I will not. I will not. I have to be strong. Luffy needs me to be strong." A soft whimper escaped her lips as she felt a painful tug at her heart. She dropped her hands and looked at her surroundings, confused for a moment as to where she was.

"That is right," she mumbled, recognizing the room as Chopper's clinic. "They put me here until they get another bed in the girl's room."

Lavi sighed to herself. She knew that there was no way that she was going to be getting anymore sleep that night. That's what had happened before, when she had started having the dream. She rubbed her eyes and threw the blanket off of her.

"May as well get ready for the day," she murmured. She did everything that she needed to do, noticing that it was still dark outside when she was done.

"How long did I even sleep for?" Lavi pouted as stood on the deck. She looked over at the kitchen door with the corner of her eye, debating whether she should or should not follow through with her current train of thought. She turned her head to face the wooden door straightforward. She needed to do something to keep herself occupied and cooking was one of the best ways that she could.

"Mr. Sanji did give me permission," she told herself. "And Miss Makino always said that as long as I have permission..." Lavi nodded, reassuring herself that using the kitchen would be within proper bounds.

"The sun should be coming up soon so I will start making some breakfast," she said as she walked to the kitchen. She opened the door, glad that the smell of spices from the previous night was gone.

"Mr. Sanji seems like a really good chef. He keeps everything so clean and well taken care of."

Lavi hummed as she admired the kitchen as she had the previous day. She turned to the fridge and punched in the code that Sanji had given her to open the locked fridge. She let her eyes run across the large fridge, quickly seeing what ingredients it contained. It didn't take her long to figure out what to make and when she did, she started grabbing everything that she was going to need and placing it neatly on the counter.

She grabbed an apron that she had found hanging on a wall—it was light pink with a panda on it; she tied it around herself and patted it at the waist. She frowned.

"It does not have any pockets," she said with a pout. "How awful." She shook it off with the thought that at least her pants had pockets and continued to work on the planned breakfast.

"I have to be careful with how I portion the sugar," she mumbled to herself as she started to crack some eggs. "And the vanilla," she added as an afterthought. Her lips upturned into a smile as she continued to mix in ingredients, her mind pushing away all thoughts of the nightmare that she had had not long ago.

***

Sanji woke up with a yawn. He rubbed his eyes as he looked over to his crewmates and saw them asleep. It wasn't surprising, though, since he was the only one that ever woke up this early; after all, he had the task of making breakfast before everyone woke up.

He completed his usual morning routine before heading to the ship's kitchen. On his way, though, he stopped for a moment to admire the rising sun. He pulled a cigarette out and put it in his mouth before lighting it. He took a long drag of his cigarette and blew out the smoke before continuing his trek to the kitchen. As he got closer to it, he noticed a delightful smell wafting out from inside; he immediately grew confused.

He warily opened the door to the kitchen and stepped inside, letting the door shut softly behind him. He watched as Lavi, who had her back to him, shifted from one foot to the next. He walked toward the humming girl with complete curiosity running through his mind. Lavi was too occupied with tasting the food that she was making to sense the blond man's nearing presence so when she heard the sound of his voice calling her name, she jumped. She swiftly turned around, wide-eyed, looking like a child who had just been caught doing something that they shouldn't have been doing.

"You shouldn't have to gotten up early to make breakfast!" Sanji said with a look of guilt on his face. "I can take care of that. Plus, a lovely la—," Sanji stopped himself from finishing the word. "A lovely woman such as yourself needs her beauty sleep." Lavi gave him a small smile as she turned back around to tend to her cooking.

"It is alright, Mr. Sanji. I could not sleep anyway," she explained. "And I needed something to do." Sanji stood silent for a moment before walking to stand right behind her to look over her shoulder. Lavi tensed at the sudden lack of distance and red stained her cheeks as she felt the warmth radiating off of his body. But it subsided when she found herself surrounded by his scent: nicotine and spices. She wrinkled her nose at the smell—she hated the smell of spices.

The man in question was too focused watching her cook to notice their closeness—else, he would have been unable to keep any form of composure.

"Do you need any help?" He asked her as he watched her flip, what he easily recognized as, a crêpe in a frying pan. Lavi, after forcing herself to relax, hummed thoughtfully for a moment.

"May you please taste what I have finished and tell me what you think? I am not the best judge of things when it comes to tasting. I always end up making things that are too sweet for other people," she said, trailing off at the end.

'She can be so polite and soft spoken,' he thought. 'Hard to believe that she's related to Luffy.'

"Of course, Lavi-chwan~," he swooned. "Anything for you~." She pointed over at a pan on the other side of the stove. A low fire sat under it to keep it warm.

"Crêpes filled with honey whipped cream," she told him. "And I made some blueberry sauce that is meant to top it. It is in the fridge."

Sanji turned toward the fridge and quickly found the purple sauce that Lavi had made. He grabbed a small plate, a fork, and one of the crêpes, which he poured the sauce on top of. His eyes widened as he took a bite out of it.

"Lavi-chwan is such a wonderful cook~," he chirped. Lavi blushed at the compliment, laughing nervously.

'Not at all,' she thought to herself. 'My palate is way too abnormal.' She frowned for a second, immediately forcing a smile back onto her face. She internally sighed. 'As the cook, he will have to find out. I wonder if he will believe it. People usually do not.'

"Thank you, Mr. Sanji. I am pleased to hear that. There is also Caramel Banana French Toast in the oven," she told him. Sanji watched the woman before him in amazement. None of his other crewmates had ever been able to understand his love of cooking and the joy that it brought him, but maybe, he thought, just maybe he had found someone who could.

"If I may suggest something, you should really invest in an apron with pockets," she told him. "Pockets are one of the most amazing inventions in the world." Sanji smiled at the innocent statement.

"Lavi-chan makes such wonderful suggestions~. As soon as we land again I will buy the most amazing apron—with pockets." Lavi smiled at the man. She needed those pockets.

***

Lavi helped Sanji set the table just as everyone started to barge into the kitchen for breakfast—Luffy being the first, of course. She waited until all the food was set before sitting down at the table, next to her brother. And as Sanji washed started on washing the dishes as he always did while the others ate, waiting until after everyone else was done to eat himself, he couldn't help but keep glancing up at Lavi.

Watching her eat right next to Luffy was a sight to behold. She folded a napkin onto her lap and politely gave her thanks for the meal before starting to eat whereas Luffy waited for nothing nor any one to start chowing down. She ate neatly and at an even, albeit fairly rapid, pace whereas her brother gulped down as much as he could at once, making a mess of not only himself, but those around him. At first, the two siblings appeared to have been the same—simple minded and childish, but now it started to seem like they were polar opposites. All it did was pique Sanji's curiosity more.

He momentarily pulled away his gaze from the table to put away some of the dried dishes. When he looked back up he saw Lavi's dark eyes boring into his own. She looked at him with her head tilted to the side while chewing a mouthful of food. He felt like she was trying to ask him something, but when he didn't get the question, she turned her gaze back down to her food. It caused him to frown; he wanted to know what she was thinking.

The curiosity continued to bounce back and forth in his brain while everyone, loudly, finished their dinners. He sighed in relief once the crew had started to make their way out—while he did love his crew, he relished in the silence that he was able to get in his kitchen when he was alone; well, he _thought_ he was alone.

Lavi popped up right in front of him making him jump back in surprise.

"Did I startle you? I am sorry!" She exclaimed with a short bow. "I did not mean to. I really should have announced my presence. Miss Makino would—." Sanji blinked, but, once he had gathered himself, he cut her off.

"Don't worry about it, Lavi-chan," he said with a lovestruck grin. "You can do whatever you want~" Lavi sighed in relief, a small smile settling itself onto her face again.

"Here," she said, handing him a pile of plates. He grabbed them, confused for a moment.

"You really don't," he started as she turned around, heading back to the dining table. Lavi shook her head at him.

"I insist," she said. "It is neither polite nor fair to leave this all to you."

"But you should be relaxing with the others."

"So should you," she said giving him a pointed look. She frowned for a short moment. "I am sorry." Sanji furrowed his brow as she brought him the last set of plates.

"For what?" He asked her. Lavi pursed her lips, but didn't answer. She wiped down the table while Sanji continued to wash the dishes; a tense silence settled upon them. When she finished, she sat on the bar seat of the counter across from him.

"I know it is not my place to say this, Mr. Sanji," she said softly. He looked up at her, meeting her gaze.

"But I noticed that you haven't eaten yet." She tilted her head. "Do you always wait until you finish everything to eat?"

"Ah," said Sanji. So that was her unspoken question from earlier, he thought. "Don't worry about it, Lavi-chan. I am here to serve the beautiful women of this ship; like you~." Lavi was not bothered by his words. Though she did puff up her cheeks at them.

"But then you have to eat alone!" She said, raising her voice slightly. "And eating alone is not any fun," she said with her voice back in an even tone. Sanji's curious gaze lingered on her face; there was something very childlike about the way that she said that. A smile erupted on his face at her concern though.

"Lavi-chwan is worried about me~ I can die a happy man now~, " he said as he twirled around, his hands covered in soap. Lavi's cheeks deflated as she watched the cook's antics.

"From now on, I am going to wait for you so we can eat together," she said. Sanji froze at her words.

"Wha—?" He questioned. "No! There's really no need for that! You really shouldn't be going out of your way for—." He paused when he saw the determined look on her face. It was the same as Luffy's and if she was as stubborn as their captain then he knew that there was no talking her out of it. He fell to his knees with tears streaming down his face.

"A lowly man like me doesn't deserve such kindness from a thoughtful lady like you," wailed Sanji, which was followed by a hit to his head.

"I told you not to call me a lady!" She shouted at him, any previous trace of propriety gone.

"Lavi-chwan is beautiful even when she's violent~." Lavi ignored his comment; she moved to the sink and started to wash the dishes that he had neglected.

"No!" Sanji cried out, but before he could protest any further, she sent him a sharp look with her cheeks puffed out again. "So cute," he said softly, but it was loud enough that she could hear it. That compliment made her blush and she immediately deflated her cheeks.  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Bee Puppycat reference here. Also a reference to the terrible 4kids dub (which was actually my introduction to One Piece way back when). Shout out to anyone who can catch them~

**[12 Years Ago; Lavi, age 6]**

"Miss Makino! Miss Makino!" Shouted an eager, six-year-old Lavi as she bounced up and down on said woman's bed.

"Lavi," Makino groaned out with a hint of disapproval in her voice.

"Wake up!" Lavi whined. Makino sat up in her bed causing Lavi to grin. At the sight of the girl's exuberant face, Makino couldn't help but smile.

"Why are you excited this morning?" She asked the young girl.

"I realized something!" Lavi explained.

"And what is that?" Lavi's face grew serious before responding.

"The sooner we start my lesson for today, the sooner I finish it. And then I get to go see Luffy and Sabo!" Makino laughed lightly at the explanation.

"Not Ace?" She inquired. Lavi puffed up her cheeks at the mention of the boy.

"I don't wanna see him! He's a meanie."

"A little birdie told me that you are always picking fights with him." Makino gave her a stern look.

"What?!" Lavi shouted. "Who said that?! Was it Ace?! I'm gonna have to fight him for lying!" Makino sighed.

"You are hopeless."

"Huh?" Lavi uttered while tilting her head; Makino shook her head as she got out of bed.

"Come on," she told Lavi. "Let's get ready for the day."

"Yosh!" Lavi leaped off of the bed excitedly—excitement which remained until Makino finished helping her get dressed.

"No! No! No!" Lavi shouted, stomping one foot into the ground. Her brow furrowed as she looked at the light blue dress on her frame through the mirror. "I don't like this!"

"But you look so pretty in it," Makino said.

"I don't care!" Lavi responded, puffing up her cheeks. "It doesn't have pockets! Where am I supposed to keep my candy?!" Makino giggled at the girl's reaction.

"Is that the only thing that bothers you?" Makino asked. Lavi turned to look at her blankly.

"Yes," she said.

"Well," began Makino, "I know that it's hard to find dresses with pockets so how about I teach you how to sew?"

"How would that help?"

"Well, then you could make your own pockets." Lavi's face lit up.

"I can do that?!" She asked incredulously.

"Of course."

"Can I make extra pockets?!" Lavi asked while bouncing up and down.

"Within reason," Makino answered her.

"Yes! What are we waiting for?!" She grabbed onto Makino's hand and tugged her out of the room.

"Lavi!" Makino squealed at the rough pull forward. "Slow down!"

***

**[Present; Lavi, age 18; Sanji, age 21]**

Watching him cook was like watching a dance; it was like watching a ballet with a choreography that only the most advanced of dancers could learn. His hands moved with a speed and precision that could only have been achieved from years of experience.

He hadn't heard her enter the kitchen. Either she was more silent than she thought or he was too engrossed in preparing dinner for the crew to hear her. Regardless, she chose to keep her presence hidden for the time being so that she could observe him properly. So that she could see him as he was without the pressure of watching eyes. And, boy, was Lavi glad that she had chosen to do so.

Watching Sanji cook, she thought, could easily become her new favorite pastime. There was an elegance in the way that his hands moved around the kitchen—from ingredient to ingredient to utensil to stove. It was the kind of mesmerizing that made you unknowingly hold your breath and that narrowed your vision so that all she saw in that moment was _him_.

After a few minutes passed, though, Lavi figured that she should actually do what she came to the kitchen to do. She readjusted her cap, its bill facing backwards, and pushed a lollipop that she had in her mouth from her left cheek to her right one with her tongue.

"Mr. Sanji," she called the blond man as she walked closer to him. Said man turned around at the sound of his name. His face lit up as he saw who had called him.

"Lavi-chwan~. What have I done to be graced by your wonderful presence~?" Sanji asked whimsically. Lavi sent him a gentle smile.

"I wanted to offer my assistance," she said. Sanji let out a lungful of smoke as he lowered the fire on the stove. "I have been called an exceptional baker a few times," she continued. "So I can make dessert while you finish preparing the rest of the food for dinner."

"Lavi-chwan is so thoughtful~," Sanji said in response. "But you don't have to worry about me. You should be relaxing with the other lovely ladies~."

Lavi's left eye twitched at Sanji's statement as she stared at him. She went to clench her teeth, but, with the lollipop in her mouth, she just ended up biting down on it. Sanji saw the eye-twitch and watched with curiosity as a fiery look arose in her eyes. He gulped when he heard the resounding crunch caused by her crushing the lollipop between her teeth.

Lavi took a deep breath as she held back an insult and a threat. She didn't want to upset the crew's cook lest she lose the privilege of using his kitchen. It surprised Sanji to see the fire in her eyes begin to die down. It also surprised him that she didn't say anything in response to him calling her a lady.

"Do not worry about it," Lavi said after swallowing the crushed pieces of the lollipop in her mouth. She pulled the lollipop's stick from her mouth as she walked toward the trash to throw it away. "I would rather help you with dessert than sit under that hot sun," Lavi told him.

She reached inside the pocket of her pants and pulled out a bright green piece of hard candy which was covered in a clear wrapper. Sanji raised his visible eyebrow at her as he watched her unwrap it and pop it into her mouth. There was something inherently sensual about the action.

She moved her gaze from her hands to meet his own while he took a deep inhale from his cigarette. He blew out the smoke before responding to her.

"Alright. Your wish is my command," he said with a bow as he motioned for her to enter the cooking area. Lavi rose an eyebrow at the action, but walked forward no less and started to gather her needed ingredients. Sanji turned back to preparing everyone's meals, though now it was coupled with the occasional glance at Lavi. He took note of every ingredient that she pulled out, sorting through the various recipes that filled his memory to try and see if he could figure out what she had planned. When he could not, he decided to just ask her.

"So what is it that you're going to make, Lavi-chan?" He asked.

"Mint-White Chocolate Mousse Cake," she answered as she started to mix the flour, sugar, and eggs together. He didn't say anything in response to her answer, not that she had expected him to. He stood back and watched her work as the broth for the soup that he was making sat in a pot over the stove fire.

Watching her cook, he thought, could easily become his new favorite pastime. There was an undeniable poise to the way that she moved around the kitchen—the way her slender fingers grasped each ingredient and each utensil that she used. He found himself transfixed as he watched her periodically take a taste of what she was preparing. She had managed to narrow his vision and all that he saw in that moment was _her_.

"How big are you planning to make this cake?" Sanji asked her as he eyed the large bowl of batter in her arms. He released smoke from his lungs before removing the cigarette from his lips, letting it sit between his fingers and burn away. "I know Luffy can eat a lot, but—."

"No," said Lavi, interrupting him. "Luffy is only allowed to eat a few bites—reasonable bites, not Luffy-sized bites—or he will not be able to sleep later tonight." Sanji mentally agreed. He had learned the hard way when he had first joined the crew that his hyperactive captain did not need any more energy than he already had.

"I have made enough batter to make two decently sized cakes," continued Lavi as she poured the batter into two separate cake pans. "One is for all of you to share and one is all mine." Sanji's eyes widened at her statement.

He thought back to earlier that morning; to how everything that she had made for breakfast were foods with a high sugar content. And then back to the short time during which he's known her; to how she's usually eating some sort of candy.

"Lavi-chan," started Sanji in a tone that sounded both worried and chastising, "you shouldn't have so much sugar in your diet."

Lavi turned to face Sanji after she placed both cake pans in the oven. She leaned her back against the countertop and sighed—it was the moment of truth.

"I need an entire cake for myself," she started, "because, since I will not be eating your food, a simple slice of cake will not fill me up." A look of confusion spread across Sanji's face and Lavi's eyes widened in immediate response; right after the words left her mouth, she realized how what she had said may have sounded to the blond chef.

"I do not mean to imply that your food is o't any good!" She said in a frantic tone. "I mean, I have not tasted it, but I am sure it tastes good! I just—." Lavi paused for a moment and bit her lip. She looked at Sanji apprehensively only to see that his gaze held nothing but curiosity. That put her a bit more at ease since she had been afraid that she had offended him.

"I have a special diet," Lavi continued, using air quotes on the word 'special'. "My body does not process unsweetened foods properly." She averted her gaze away from Sanji's. "That is why I am always eating sweets." She shuffled her feet nervously. "As a result, it is impossible for me to cook things like you do. My palate," Lavi hesitated, trying to figure out the right wording. "Anything that is not very sweet tastes bitter to me; so, if it is not a sweet, I am no good at making it. Sometimes I even go a little overboard with the sugar when I make sweets." Lavi trailed off at the end.

Her eyes, which had shifted downward to stare at her shoes long ago, moved back up to look at Sanji. His face held a bewildered expression, which didn't surprise her. She was waiting for him to call her a liar like her previous captain, Bonney, had; or a weirdo like Luffy and Ace had. But he didn't.

"But that means you don't have a well-balanced diet!" Sanji said in a concerned tone. "How can you get all the proper nutrients that you need?!" Lavi placed a hand over her mouth as a giggle erupted from her at his frantic speech.

'This is a first,' she thought.

"Do not worry about that," she said with a gentle smile. "I have already talked to Doctor Chopper about it; he can make sure that I stay perfectly healthy. But thank you for the concern."

Sanji furrowed his brow at her response; he had already realized that Lavi was polite—unusually polite considering who she was related to; but expressing gratitude over his worry was—

He placed the cigarette that was in his hand back between his lips only to realize that the fire at its end had extinguished. He pulled out his lighter and relit it.

"And it is not that unhealthy," Lavi added; Sanji noticed a newfound playful look on her face. "There is the occasional candy apple, y'know? But do not count on me to eat my veggies; not even I can stomach candy corn. Yuck!" She stuck her tongue out to emphasize her disgust. Sanji stared at her blankly for a few seconds and then fell onto the floor on his knees with tears streaming down his face.

"So cute," he said as he pounded his fist on the floor. "I don't know if I can handle it." Lavi stuck her tongue back in her mouth and blushed at the compliment. She puffed up her cheeks. It was starting to frustrate her that this man was able to keep making her blush.

Fairly quickly, he was back on his feet with his cigarette hanging from in between his lips as if nothing had ever happened.

"But that gives me a great idea," he said. Lavi blew out the air from her cheeks.

"Huh?" Lavi questioned, tilting her head to the side. "Idea for what?"

"You'll see soon, my beloved Lavi-chwan~," Sanji sang. Lavi simply sighed in response.

***

That night the moon was high and the skies were clear with a gentle breeze blowing against the wood of the Thousand Sunny—that same night, Sanji woke up midway through it with both his mouth and throat dry. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and headed to the kitchen where he quenched his thirst.

Heading back to the men's quarters, he paused midway across the deck; there was a figure seated on the railing of the ship. He could barely just make out the figure, but he could tell that it was feminine. That worried him. Could one of the women on the ship possibly be having trouble sleeping? If so, he needed to come to her rescue; to help them in any way possible.

As he walked toward the figure, it didn't take him long to recognize that the slender figure could only belong to Lavi, seeing as she had a much smaller chest than both Nami and Robin. She was in her pajamas—well, Luffy's pajamas that she had claimed as her own—staring out toward the sea. Without her baseball cap on, the wind was allowed to freely blow her hair back.

Lavi felt his nearing presence, but she waited until he stopped right next to her to speak.

"Hello, Mr. Sanji," she said in a hushed tone. "Should you not be sleeping?"

"I must be because to have such a wonderful woman concerned for me is a dream come true~" he replied. Lavi didn't say anything in return.

Sanji moved to grab a cigarette from his pants, but realized that he didn't have any with him. He had only left the room to get water, after all. He sighed and leaned his elbows against the railing.

Lavi reached into her pocket and pulled out a lollipop. She handed it to him without removing her eyes from the horizon.

"I know it is not a cigarette, but," she said, trailing off at the end. Sanji thanked her, but, again, she didn't respond; she seemed to be lost in thought.

The cook didn't have that much of a sweet tooth, but he would never reject something that had been offered to him by a woman. As silence settled between them, he unwrapped the candy. He popped it in his mouth, running his tongue across the sweet—apple flavored, he acknowledged. He wondered if that was her favorite.

"You remind me of a chimney," she said out of the blue. Sanji looked over at her questioningly. He noticed that she was chewing something, but he couldn't tell what it was. "I have not been around for very long, but, from what I have noticed, you smoke a lot—almost all of the time. Like a chimney."

Sanji opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off.

"I am sorry," she said abruptly. "I should not have said that." Her gaze was still set on the horizon.

"Why not?" He questioned.

"A lady speaks only when necessary; she does not voice her opinion when it has not been asked for." Sanji's eyes widened and he opened his mouth to say something, but quickly stopped himself. He saw that her face held a blank look and her body showed no sudden change; he realized that she hadn't even noticed what she had said. And that threw him off completely.

She had been so adamantly against being called a lady, yet here she was reciting what a lady 'should' do as if it were second nature to her; as if it was something that she had rehearsed—had she, Sanji wondered. If that were the case, it would certainly explain why she was so polite, he mused. But, still, a lot of her propriety was disconcerting. It felt out of place. Sometimes it was only half there. Sometimes it came up as if it were an afterthought. Other times it didn't make an appearance at all.

And it certainly couldn't begin to explain why she detested being called a lady.

Sanji was at a loss. He didn't understand a thing about this woman.

A silence settled over them again as they remained in a momentary stillness, simply enjoying each other's company and the sound of the waves beating softly against their ship.

"So what do you think of the crew so far?" Sanji asked her after a while.

"Everyone here is wonderful," she answered. "But that is just what I expected."

"How come?"

"Because this is Luffy's crew. And all of you are here because Luffy chose you to be." She paused and smiled. "One of the things that my brother is very good at is choosing his friends. So I believe in anyone that he believes in." Sanji looked at her curiously. There was a certain something in her eye, he noticed, that only appeared when she talked about her brother.

Silence settled over them once again. Sanji found himself enjoying these moments that they shared together, even the silent ones; but, inevitably, all silence had to be broken.

"Are you having trouble sleeping again?" He asked her.

"Hmm?" She asked, turning her head to face him. She looked at him quizzically.

"When you were making breakfast you said that you had had trouble sleeping," he pointed out. "So are you having trouble with that again?" Lavi raised her eyebrow at the man. She hadn't expected him to neither remember that nor care. Lavi closed her eyes, turning her head back to face ahead of her, and hummed thoughtfully, but she didn't answer.

"Should I be worried?" Sanji asked her. He bit down on the lollipop in his mouth, breaking it into several pieces. He pulled the stick of the candy out and started to crush the pieces into smaller ones.

Lavi smiled at his question—not the polite smile that he was starting to get used to nor the wide grin that she wore when she was with her brother; it was a small smile that managed to seem filled with both gratitude and sorrow at the same time; a smile that made him believe that he should feel blessed, but that also made him believe that he should feel worried. It was a smile that he could tell was rare.

"No," she replied. He watched her pull out another piece of candy from her pocket. "But it _is_ getting quiet late, is it not?" She turned around, and jumped off of the railing and onto the deck. "I should be heading to bed then. Goodnight, Mr. Sanji," she said before walking away and toward the clinic.

Sanji continued to watch her until she was out of sight. Something in his gut told him that she wouldn't be going to sleep, but he knew that there was nothing that he could do about it.

With a sigh he swallowed the last bit of the candy that was left in his mouth; and then made his way back to the mens' quarters to salvage what time was left of his night to sleep.  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is actual medical reasoning behind Lavi's diet. But you'll have to wait for the next chapter to find that out. Also, on the topic of medical things: no, she would not get diabetes from constantly eating sweets. It's a common misconception-diabetes does not work that way.

**[12 Years Ago; Luffy, age 7; Lavi, age 6]**

Luffy walked into Partys bar with the hope that Shanks and his crew would be there. Lavi trailed right behind him.

Ever since she had learned about the consequences of eating a devil fruit, she kept fearing that Luffy would somehow end up drowning. She had been following him around since then and had been steering him away from even the smallest of puddles. Luffy didn't mind his sister pushing him from one side to the other, making him avoid all forms of water, when they walked. He had learned long ago that it was best to let her do as she pleased when it came to these things.

Luffy's grin fell when he walked into the bar and saw, instead of Shanks, the bandits from a few days prior that had disrespected the red-haired pirate. He huffed and sat down at the counter ready to ignore them until they started speaking disrespectfully against Shanks. Lavi groaned, knowing where this would lead.

Luffy told them to stop, but they just laughed at him which only made Luffy more upset. He proceeded to punch the bandit leader which, of course, did not successfully hurt him; but it did succeed in drawing his full attention to the boy. Before the bandit leader could land a blow on the rubber boy, though, another figure was standing in front of him receiving it instead.

Lavi put her arms up, in front of her face, as she stood in front of her brother, so that the limbs would receive the blow instead of him. She felt herself get pushed backward and into Luffy at the force of the punch. She knew that she was strong, stronger than a six-year-old girl would normally be, but she was still a six-year-old girl.

And then everything drastically escalated.

Before they knew it, Lavi and Luffy had ended up outside, both sporting bruises. Lavi had tried her best to protect Luffy, which was evident in the fact that the amount of bruises on her body far outnumbered the ones on Luffy's, but she had not been able to deflect every single hit that was sent toward him.

"People were drinkin' and having a nice time," said the bandit leader. "What's the idea?"

"Dammit!" Shouted Luffy. "Apologize! How dare you make fun of Shanks and his crew!" The bandit leader aimed a foot at Luffy, but before he could land the blow, Lavi was in front of Luffy once again, with her arms up and ready to block the oncoming attack.

He pushed his foot onto her arms, but he didn't remove them when she hadn't been pushed back like she had expected him to. Rather, he continued to press his foot down on her arms with a growing force. Lavi gritted her teeth and shut her eyes tightly at the increasing pressure on her already injured arms.

"I'm getting real tired of you, brat," the bandit told her.

"Lavi!" Luffy shouted, pressing his small hands against her back.

"I'm alright, Luffy!" She said. "Don't worry about me." The bandit scoffed. He removed his foot and moved it to the right before she could react, kicking her onto the floor. She grunted at the impact.

"Lavi!" Luffy cried out. He moved to stand in front of her and glared at the bandit. "Apologize for hurting Lavi and apologize for making fun of Shanks, you stupid bandits!"

"You oughta watch your mouth, boy," said the bandit. He lifted his foot and rested it on Luffy's arms who were protecting him as best as they could. Lavi growled at the action and pushed herself back up.

"Don't you dare touch my brother!" She shouted in fury as she placed all of her strength into a punch that she landed on the bandit's leg. She smirked as he pulled his leg back and turned to her with a scowl. She could tell that he had felt that. He flinched when his foot touched the ground again.

"What the hell? Are you a devil fruit user too?" He hissed.

"Nope," Lavi said with a look of pride on her face. "It's my fist of love!"

"Whatever," the bandit muttered. "No one makes me mad or hurts me and lives to tell the tale." He pulled out a gun from a holster at his waist, aimed it at the little girl, and fired.

"Lavi!" Luffy shouted from beside her.

Lavi's eyes widened as she felt a fiery pain explode in her left shoulder. She pressed her hand onto the shoulder as she fell back onto the floor. When she pulled away the hand and looked at it, it was red.

"Wait!" Shouted the mayor. "Stop it! Let them go! Please! Don't make this any worse! I don't know what they have done nor do I intend to fight with you. If you're not offended, I'll even pay you. Just, please! Spare their lives!" Makino stood beside him with tears in her eyes as she looked worriedly at Lavi who lay on the floor with gritted teeth.

"Leave it to senior citizens to know how the world works," said the bandit. "But no. It's too late for them. They've made me angry."

"You big, stupid mountain apes! How dare you do that to my sister?!" Luffy shouted. Lavi internally cursed her brother's loud and uncensored mouth.

The tips of the fingers on her wounded arm were starting to feel numb; with that arm out of commission, she tried to push herself off of the ground with her non-dominant one, but it was proving to be impossible with the pain that she was in.

"Oi!" Shouted Lavi, attempting to grab the bandit leader's attention. "You ugly, stinky bandit! If you even thinking about touching a single strand of hair on my big brother's head, I'll kill you!" The bandit turned to look at her with amusement visible on his face.

"I'm amazed you still have some fight in you," the bandit said.

"I was wondering why the bar was empty," said a new voice. Lavi couldn't see who it was from her position on the ground, but the voice sounded familiar. "Looks like it's those mountain bandits from before."

"Shanks!" Shouted Luffy. Lavi sighed in relief. She may not have been Shanks' biggest fan like Luffy was—in fact, she didn't even trust the man, but she did trust Luffy so, in that moment, she trusted Luffy's trust in the man.

"So you pirates are still here, huh?" Asked the bandit leader. "Have you been scrubbing the village clean this whole time?"

"Luffy," said Shanks with a smile, ignoring the bandit. "I thought your punches were as strong as pistols." His eyes hardened as they fell on the form of the boy's sister. She was on the ground with a bloody hand on her shoulder. That really didn't sit well with him.

"I dunno why you're here," said the bandit, "but you'd best leave before you get hurt."

"Tell me," said Shanks. "How shitty of a person do you have to be to shoot a kid?"

Lavi was starting to feel a heavy tiredness set in. She started focusing most of her attention on not closing her eyes so she had trouble paying attention to what was going on.

She had heard another gunshot at a point. She had heard Shanks say, "Do you think you're dealing with saints or something? You're looking at pirates." She had heard him say something about people hurting his friends. Or she thought she did—she definitely heard him say "friends." Her eyes were almost fully closed when she had heard someone say the words "Luffy" and "gone" right next to each other in the same sentence. At the sound of those words, her eyes snapped open. She rolled onto her back and used all of her strength to force herself to sit up—it was unbearably painful, but the thought of her brother being in danger made her able to deal with it.

"You damn, useless tomato-headed idiot!" She shouted at Shanks. She could see the red mass that was his hair, but her vision was starting to blur. "You better not let anything happen to my big brother." Her voice had grown weak by the end. Her vision started to fade then and she felt like she could no longer hold her eyelids open. She felt a pair of strong arms pick her up.

"You're a good sister," she heard Shanks say—his voice was suddenly closer and Lavi could only assume that he was the one that was holding her. "You can rest now. I promise you that I won't let anything happen to Luffy." And with that promise in mind, Lavi let herself slip into unconsciousness.

***

**[Some Time After]**

Red-haired Shanks sat at the counter of Partys Bar sipping from a mug of beer when the door to the bar suddenly slammed open. And, seeing that Luffy was seated right next to him, he knew of only one other person in the town who would walk into the establishment so rudely: Lavi.

He was relieved to see her alright, even if she was injured. Her arms and her left shoulder were bandaged up and there were two bandages on her face. She held a slightly angry, but determined look on her face and her gaze was settled on him. She marched up to the red-haired man and bowed, her eyes settling on the floor.

"Thank you for saving my brother," she said softly; her eyes trailed back up, but stopped when they landed on Shanks' left side. Shanks noticed her gaze and saw the tears in her eyes, ready to fall. "I'm sorry!" She exclaimed. "If I was stronger then this wouldn't have happened. So you can take my good arm to replace yours if you want." Shanks and his crew all laughed.

"That's not how arms work," said Shanks. "Or any body parts. Once it's gone, it's gone." He saw tears start to stream down her face as her mouth fell into a scowl—Shanks couldn't help but notice that her crying face was exactly like Luffy's.

"Don't cry!" Pleaded the pirate captain. "It's just an arm." Lavi sniffled as she made her tears die down.

"But how are you supposed to fight with only one arm?" She asked him.

"Shanks is so strong," said Luffy, standing up on a bar stool, "that even with only one arm he could beat up a whole group of bandits!" Lavi wrinkled her nose at her brother's statement. Her tears had fully stopped.

"That's impossible!" She said. "No one can take on an entire group of them just by themselves. There'd be way too many people to fight."

"It's not impossible for Shanks because he's such a great pirate," defended Luffy.

"Nah," said Lavi, shaking her head. "There's no way that someone with a tomato head could be great."

"Hey, you're being a brat again," said Shanks to the girl. "Did you exceed your limit of nice things that you can say in one day?" Lavi simply stuck out her tongue in response to the red-haired pirate. Shanks laughed at the childish act.

"You know I saved your life too, kid," he told her. It's not that he wanted her gratitude for it, but he was curious as to why she hadn't thanked him for that as well; he was certain that she knew about it. Lavi shrugged at his statement.

"All that matters is that Luffy's okay," she told him. Shanks raised his eyebrows at the statement.

"That's a really dangerous way of thinking. Especially for a brat like you." Lavi turned to him and puffed out her cheeks. She held his gaze and Shanks couldn't help but smile at the intense seriousness that she was expressing through her eyes. Shanks sighed, knowing that she wouldn't listen to him.

"Do try to value your life a little more," he said as he ruffled her hair.

"Hey!" She shouted at him as she swatted his hand away. "If you touch me again, you'll have to fight me!"

***

**[Present; Luffy, age 19; Lavi, age 18]**

"But how does the food not fall out when you eat?" Lavi asked, her voice showing distress. Said female pirate was sitting cross-legged in front of her skeletonized crew member who was calmly sipping his tea. Her hands were pulling down on the sides of her baseball cap, which she was wearing with the brim backwards, preventing it from fulfilling its purpose of shading her eyes from the bright sun overhead. "You cannot even digest the food! Where does the poop come out from?! Does that mean you also pee? How?! It does not make any sense!"

Lavi brought her hands down to bang her fists lightly on the floor while she hunched over and wailed. Brook couldn't help but laugh at the girl's actions.

"Lavi," whined Luffy who was now squatting down beside her. "You're thinking too hard. It's starting to hurt me." He placed his hands on either side of his head, holding it like it was in pain.

"That's not possible!" Shouted Usopp and Chopper who were standing beside them.

"There are some things you just shouldn't question," Usopp told her, shaking his head. Lavi puffed out her cheeks in frustration.

"How am I supposed to just ignore it?" She mumbled, but no one heard her. Luffy stood up quickly, his grin back on his face. He stretched his arm out to his sister.

"Come on! Come play with us!" Exclaimed Luffy. Lavi sighed and a smile settled on her face; she couldn't refuse her brother. She grabbed his hand and let him pull her up to a standing position. "Let's play tag," he said. "But," he added, pausing for a moment as he stretched his arm up to the foremast, pulling himself up and then standing himself on the wooden yard from which the front sail hung from. "The grass is lava!" He finished, shouting.

Lavi's eyes widened as she jumped to the side, using Brook's head as a stepping stone, which caused him to cry out, to propel her forward to the wooden railing on the side of the ship. Chopper had jumped up onto Usopp's head, covering his eyes and causing him to aimlessly run around in circles—on the grass.

"That is not fair!" Shouted Lavi as she pointed a finger at her brother. "You have the clear advantage here!" Luffy laughed in response. "Who is 'it' anyway?" She asked.

"Hmm," mused Luffy aloud. "How about you?!" Lavi's eye twitched. Usopp, who had finally pried Chopper's hooves off of his eyes, and was now standing on the stairs that led to the back of the ship, yelped and stepped farther away from the girl.

"Oh, you do not have to worry about me, Usopp," she told him. "I have my eyes set on a specific, unfair pirate captain." Usopp just stepped even farther away from Lavi. He had a feeling that he didn't want to get in her way at the moment.

"Oh, Luffy~," Lavi sang in a sickly sweet voice. She moved along the side of the ship, before leaping onto the mast and climbing up. Before she even got halfway up though, Luffy had stretched his arms out and pulled himself onto the railing where she had originally been standing on. Her eye twitched as he laughed at her.

"Now you are just messing with me!" She shouted.

"But she's still not touching the floor," Franky, who was now sitting beside Usopp, pointed out. Usopp and Chopper both jumped.

"When did you get there?!" They screamed, surprised.

"Yohoho!" Brook laughed. "She seems upset, but she won't ruin the game for him." Usopp and Chopper jumped again.

"How long have you been there?!" Asked Usopp as Franky sobbed in the background, saying something about it being "suuuupeeeer" sweet and the "precious" bond of siblings.

"The grass is lava," said Brook after taking a sip of his tea.

"That doesn't answer the question!"

The four stopped and watched with wide eyes as Lavi propelled herself off of the side of the mast and toward their captain. They knew that this could not end well. And just as they simultaneously thought the same thing, Lavi veered to the side, falling just short of the railing, only an arm's length away from her brother, and right on top of a certain, napping swordsman. Said swordsman immediately got up, but not without an added weight. His eye twitched as Lavi's limbs wrapped tightly on his right arm.

"Get the hell off me!" He shouted as he shook his arm, trying to get the newest member of their crew off, but she refused to budge.

"No!" She shouted back. "I do not want to die!"

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

"The grass is lava," said Luffy with a laugh, now squatting on the railing next to where Zoro was standing. Zoro's eye twitched more.

"You've got to be kidding me," he muttered. He squatted down and let Lavi's back touch the grass. She hissed and immediately let go of his arm. He stood back up, irritation still evident on his face. She stood up abruptly and pointed an accusing finger at Zoro.

"You jerk! How dare you kill me like that?!" She said.

"How dare you wake me up from my nap?!" He growled.

"You wanna fight?" She challenged. The corner of Zoro's mouth lifted up, forming a smirk.

"Well," said the swordsman, picking up the swords that he had been holding while napping, but that had fallen to the side during all the commotion. "If you're offering."

He placed the swords on their usual positions by his waist. And got himself ready to unsheathe one. Lavi reached her arm back to grab for her bat and silently cursed when she realized that she had left it behind in the clinic. Opting not to go get it, not that she really needed it, she cracked her knuckles before getting into a fighting stance. The ship had gone silent as the previously noisy crewmembers watched in anticipation. And then the silence was broken by the slamming open of a door and the sing-song voice of a certain cook.

"Nami-swan~, Robin-chwan~, Lavi-chwan~," said the cook as he spun out onto the deck. "I made some sweet ice cream for my sweet ladies~." He said the last word a bit more hesitantly as the image of an upset Lavi flashed across the back of his mind.

When Sanji stopped spinning around on the deck, his eye twitched at the sight before him. There stood that idiot swordsman, sword out, pointing threateningly at his 'precious Lavi-chan'.

"Oi, you shitty, moss-headed idiot!" Shouted the blond as he sent a kick toward Zoro's head, which he quickly blocked with his sword. "What the hell do you think you're doing raising your weapon against a lady?!"

"Who are you calling a lady?" She asked, hitting Sanji, she made sure not too hard, over the head.

"It's a dream come true to be touched by you in any form~," sang the cook with a bump on his head and the tray filled with the three servings of ice cream still perfectly balanced on his hand.

"Shut it, you damn perverted cook," said Zoro. "She was the one that started this whole thing in the first place!"

"Because you let me die!" Lavi exclaimed.

"You woke me up from my nap!" Neither party of the arguing pair noticed a certain ginger getting closer until it was too late and both of them were on the floor nursing large bumps on their head.

"What the hell was that for?" Growled Zoro.

"You're disrupting my peace and quiet," shouted an irritated Nami.

"Why did you hit me?" Whined Lavi as she puffed out her cheeks. "He started it!"

"I don't care who started it!"

"Ah~ Nami-swan is so sexy when she's angry~," swooned Sanji, "But ahh~," he wailed. "My precious Lavi-chwan~ How could someone hurt you like this?"

"Pick a side!" Usopp shouted at him.

Once the commotion between the crew had finally settled down, Sanji served the three women of the crew the ice cream sundaes that he had prepared for them. He had served Lavi hers last, telling her that he had made hers extra sweet.

"Really?" She asked with bright eyes and an excited smile. "Thank you so much, Mr. Sanji. You are the best!" He grinned at the compliment. His heart soared at the sight of how happy the simple gesture had made her. He couldn't wait until that night's dinner.

Luffy immediately appeared right next to her, whining about how he didn't get one.

"You don't need one," shouted Sanji. Then he lowered his voice, speaking in the sing-song tone that he often held. "It's the beautiful women that need to say refreshed~."

"But I'm the captain," pouted Luffy.

"You can have mine if you want," said Lavi, handing her still untouched ice cream sundae to her brother.

"Really?" He exclaimed; his eyes shone brightly. Lavi nodded, letting her brother grab the dessert. "Thank you, Lavi!" He told her before heading off toward Usopp and Chopper.

He asked Brook, who was sitting not too far away, to play some music, to which he obliged. Meanwhile, Sanji stood there wide-eyed, while Lavi's eyes followed her brother, a soft smile appearing on her face.

"B-b-but you love sweets!" Sanji keeled over on the floor, a depressed aura settling around him. "Ah. My cooking must not be good enough for such an exquisite lady." A fist landed on his head again causing another bump to form on it.

"How many times do I need to tell you that I am not a lady?!" She shouted at him with a growl. But a soft smile quickly settled back onto her face as she squatted down next to his still-laying form. "It is not that, Mr. Sanji," she told him, ruffling his hair slightly, which made a light blush settle itself onto his face. "While I do love sweets," she continued, "it can never compare to how much I love my brother. I will do anything to make him happy so giving him some ice cream is not a big deal at all."

"Ah," began Sanji as he sat up, he took his cigarette out of his mouth briefly to exhale some smoke. "Lavi-chan is as sweet as the food that she eats," he said with a smile, in a soft non-swooning voice. Lavi turned her hat around, pushing down the bill to cover the blush that started to appear on her face. "I'll make more just for you!" He exclaimed, quickly standing up, cigarette back in his mouth.

"No! You should not go out of your way," she started lowering her voice as she finished, "for me." She sighed, seeing as Sanji had already made his way back to the kitchen. Not that he would have listened to her anyway.

She stood back up and stretched her limbs, pouting as she looked over to see that Zoro had fallen back asleep. It had been so long since she had gotten to have a proper fight. The cons of being a pirate, she thought: being stuck on a ship for days, sometimes weeks. It amazed her that someone as energetic as her brother was able to do it.

She pulled out a piece of toffee out of her pocket, unwrapping it and popping it into her mouth. Then her head quickly turned as she picked up Usopp telling Chopper a story about how he had defeated five—no, ten sea kings all by himself! She turned her hat, the bill facing behind her again as a mischievous smile appeared on her face.

"Oh, really?" She questioned, as she neared the long-nosed boy. "Ten sea kings? Well, if you are being honest," she told him, cracking her knuckles. She could see sweat start to form on his face. "Then you can fight me."

"Ah, well," said Usopp shakily, hiding behind the small reindeer doctor. "I think my 'I-can't-fight-other-crew-members-disease' is coming back." Lavi chuckled evilly as she ran after the sharpshooter, chasing him all around the ship.

Once Sanji had announced that dinner was ready, her eyes widened and her face paled as she cursed to herself. She had gotten so absorbed in playing with Usopp, Chopper, and Luffy, that she had lost track of time.

When she entered the kitchen, while everyone was seating themselves at the dining table, she headed straight for Sanji.

"I am sorry, Mr. Sanji," she said with a bow. "I did not help you with dinner today!"

"Do not worry about that, Lavi-chwan~," he told her. "You appeared to be enjoying yourself outside; I would never have been able to live with myself if I were to cause the end of that." Lavi sighed in relief.

"Okay. Well, I will take these," she said as she grabbed the dishes that he had had on his hands and moved to set them on the table. When she walked back to the kitchen area, she didn't let Sanji protest her actions.

"I was serious when I said that I would wait for you to eat," she told him. Sanji smiled.

"Alright," Sanji said. "How about you start washing the dishes while I clean the stove? I wouldn't want you to dirty your hands with such a filthy task." Lavi pouted at the suggestion. Sanji couldn't contain himself at the sight of her expression.

"So cute," he said as he started to spin around with hearts in his eyes. Lavi blushed. She puffed up her cheeks and turned around, walking away from the blond chef and toward the sink.

As Lavi washed the dishes, with her back to the cook, she found herself having to fight back the urge to look back; it was stupid, really, she thought. She knew what the chef was doing so there was no need to turn and find out; and she knew that he knew what to do so there was no need to check in on him. But, still, the urge persisted, and it was frustrating her.

What frustrated her even more was that she really couldn't help but occasionally give in to her urges for a moment or two.

When the rest of the crew had finished eating and the kitchen and dishes had finished being cleaned, Lavi sat in front of the kitchen counter.

"Don't you want to sit at the table?" Sanji asked her while he held a plate of food on either hand. Lavi shook her head.

"There are only two of us so if we sit at the table there is going to be a lot of space between us. And it is no fun eating with someone else if you are far apart from each other." Sanji smiled at the logic.

"That's fine with me," he said. "It just means that I get to sit close to a wonderful woman~." Sanji placed two plates on the countertop. One in front of her and one right next to it, in front of where he would be sitting.

Lavi scrunched up her nose as she looked at the plate before her; had Sanji gone and served her actual food? Why? She had already told him about her "special" dietary conditions.

Her brow furrowed as she looked down at each portion on the plate—none of these were things that had been served to the others. Had he made that food specifically for her. She started blushing at the thought. She turned and looked at Sanji with questioning eyes, but he pretended that he hadn't seen it and continued to eat from his own plate.

Lavi hesitantly took a bite out of one of the foods and she felt her taste buds explode. Her eyes widened and she tilted her head as she stared down at the plate. The vegetables were maple-roasted. She took a bite of the meat on the plate; she recognized it as apple-brown sugar sea-king meat. And then she picked up some of the rice, but she stopped right before putting it in her mouth. It smelled like cinnamon.

Lavi frowned. She really didn't like spices.

Not wanting to be rude, though, she stuck the food into her mouth and was pleasantly surprised.

'Cinnamon rice with apples,' she thought. 'I would have never considered this combination.' Lavi lost herself in thought as she savored every bite of the meal; so she failed to notice that the man who sat next to her now held a look of accomplishment on his face—as if he had just completed the greatest of all feats.

"You really should not have gone out of your way for me like that," she told him once she had finished eating. Sanji hummed thoughtfully as he picked up both of their plates and brought them to the sink. He lit himself a cigarette before responding.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said. Lavi's eye twitched.

Sanji began to wash the two plates, but he could feel her unwavering stare on him. She waited until he finished putting away the dishes and turned back around to face her to speak again.

"Yes, you do," Lavi accused. "You went out of your way to make me a meal of sweetened foods."

"Oh, that," he said offhandedly, a smile coming to his face. "It's my job as the cook of this ship to make sure that everyone is eating a healthy and well-balanced diet." He removed the cigarette from his mouth and blew out some smoke.

"Still," Lavi said.

"Plus, I'd do anything for my lovely Lavi-chwan~," he added. Lavi's eyes widened slightly. She turned her hat around so that the bill was facing forward and pulled it down to cover her reddening face.

'This man,' she thought, 'is going to be the death of me.'

***

That night clouds partly covered the moon and the waves had grown rougher than they had been before.

Inside the men's quarters, a certain cook lay awake; he had been having trouble falling asleep for some time now because of a certain woman that kept plaguing his mind. He knew that Lavi had been having trouble sleeping and the possibility that she was having the same problem that night was making it difficult for him to rest peacefully.

He sighed in frustration and kicked off his sheets deciding to get out of bed. He didn't change from his pajamas, but he did put on some shoes, and grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter; in that moment, he was glad that his pajamas had pockets—the thought brought his mind back to the girl.

He could clearly recall what she had told him that first day that she had made breakfast; it wasn't surprising seeing as he always paid extra attention to the women around him. 'Pockets are one of the most amazing inventions in the world', she had told him. He smiled at the memory.

He headed outside to see if he could find the woman that had been consuming his thoughts. And just as he hadn't hoped—for he had been hoping that she was in her room sleeping peacefully—she was there, outside, where she had been before, staring out at the ocean.

He walked toward her, noticing that she was in the pajamas that she had taken from her brother, and that she was hatless. Sanji realized that he liked it when she wasn't wearing the hat; it meant that she couldn't use it to cover her lovely, dark eyes or hide her dainty face. She was chewing on a stick of red licorice, a bag filled with more in her hand. She didn't turn to look at him as he walked up next to her. He pulled out a cigarette, placing it between his lips and lighting it as she finished the stick that she had been eating.

"Hello, Mr. Sanji," Lavi said quietly. "I see that you are awake tonight again." She pulled out another stick of licorice.

"As are you, sweet pea." He said with a loving smile on his face. Lavi scrunched up her nose at the term of endearment.

"No," she said. "Peas aren't sweet. And if they were, I do not think they would be very tasty."

Sanji chuckled at the comment. His gaze lingered on her form, his eyes briefly admiring the details of her face—from the tips of her lashes, across her dark eyes, down her small nose and to the piece of licorice that hung from her lips in a similar fashion as to how his cigarette hung from his own. Her features were complemented by the moonlight that peeked out of the clouds and Sanji couldn't deny that she was beautiful.

"Sometimes," he told her, "it's so hard to believe that you're related to Luffy." Lavi turned her head to face him.

"Why?" She asked.

"You're much more soft-spoken most of the time; you know how to be gentle; you're very considerate of others; you actually appreciate food, you don't just inhale it; and, of course, you're much more polite than he is." Lavi smiled at the things that he had listed. He was right about those things, but—

"Well, if we are talking about differences, it is not just those things." Lavi started after finishing the licorice that she had been chewing on. "He is stronger than I am. Maybe not physically, but in every other way. He has such good judgment—in situations and in people. He cares so deeply about the people that are worth caring about; you can see that everyday on this ship. He is not just a wonderful big brother, but he is an equally great friend and captain."

Sanji found himself unable to reply for a moment; the way that she spoke about her brother was breathtaking.

"From what I've seen you're all of those things too." She neither accepted nor denied his words choosing to look up at the sky instead with an empty bag of candy in her hand. Sanji let the sound of the waves engulf them for a moment. "You really care about Luffy, huh?" He asked her. Lavi looked over at him with a large, closed smile.

"Of course. Luffy means the world to me. He is all that I have left." She looked back out at the sea.

Sanji frowned at that. He knew that Luffy had been left devastated by the death of 'Fire Fist' Ace, and it had probably hurt her just as much assuming she had considered him a brother as well, but the statement was still strange. Didn't she still have Garp?

"Y'know," she started. "Back when I was with the Bonney Pirates, I found a Devil Fruit; I had the perfect chance to eat it, but I chose not to. Would you like to know why?"

"Naturally," he told her.

"Because if I ate it, then I would lose the ability to swim." She faced Sanji again. "And if I cannot swim, how am I supposed to save my big brother when he does something stupid and ends up falling overboard?" She gave him a close-eyed, small grin.

Sanji's jaw dropped and his cigarette fell out of his mouth. He grabbed it before it could fall into the sea below them. He placed it back between his lips and inhaled. That, thought Sanji, was a love like no other. A kind of devotion that he had never seen before. Even in the most miniscule of things, it seemed, she would always think of her brother first. He wondered for a moment if he would ever experience something like that.

Lavi took a deep breath once she had finished speaking. She enjoyed the smell that the ocean gave off, but it was mixed with the smell of spices that seemed to stick to the man that stood beside her. It made her wrinkle her nose because she still wasn't fond of the smell. Though the taste of the spiced, but sweet dish from earlier that he had made for her had made her start to think of the smell as tolerable. She started to swing her legs back and forth over the side of the ship as her mind drifted over to the food.

Sanji noticed how relaxed Lavi seemed to have become and he was glad that she could feel that way around him. But his enjoyment of the moment started to subside when he remembered that it was the middle of the night and yet she was still awake—for the third night in a row.

"Maybe some tea would help you go to sleep," he suggested to the woman. Lavi turned to look at him with a face that looked like she was appalled that he would even suggest the idea.

"I hate tea," she told him. "No matter how much sugar you add to it, it is always so bitter."

"Ah, you're right!" He said with a look of horror on his face as tears started to stream down it. "Can you forgive a stupid man like myself for even mentioning it to a woman as bright as you, Lavi-chwan~?"

"It is alright," she told him as she turned around and jumped off of the railing and onto the deck. She now stood so that he was to her left. "I do not need it anyway. I should be off to bed now, though."

But before she could walk away, she found herself frozen in place with a hand flush against her left cheek. She blinked rapidly and looked up to see Sanji looking down at her with a serious, but concerned look on his face.

"We both know that that's not fully true," he said. Lavi couldn't help but lean into his touch. Having him so close caused a light blush to surface on her face. The warmth of his hand felt nice, but the smell of spices that now engulfed her senses left her with a bad taste in her mouth.

"I do not know what you mean," she said.

"The bags under your eyes have been getting darker," he told her as he ran his thumb over the ones underneath her left eye. She gave him a small smile meant to put him at ease, but it only served to increase his worry.

"It is nothing that you should be concerned about, Mr. Sanji," she said. She stepped back and away from his touch. He let his left arm drop to his side and frowned. He said nothing as he watched her walk away toward the clinic. He felt useless and he hated that.  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend gave me the idea for this chapter and I don't even know how this came to be. There is a second part to their adventure and that will be the next chapter (which has more of Sanji than this one does). It was supposed to be all one chapter, but it came out way too long so I had to cut it in half. This always happens to me.
> 
> Also, I have this fear that Lavi might be coming off as a Mary Sue. Is she? I swear she's not one! D: I made one once like 5 years ago, and then I learned and haven't done so again. Just give her some time. Punk Hazard is coming up soon.

**[13 Years Ago; Lavi, Age 5]**

"Really, grandpa?!" Asked a bright-eyed Lavi who was sitting on said man's lap. "Eight mountains?!" Garp gave a hearty laugh at her amazement.

"Yup! Destroyed them like they were my punching bags!" He said.

"Wow," said the young girl as she looked up at him with bright eyes. "Do you think I'll ever be that strong?!" She asked with a hopeful look.

"I did say you got your strength from me, didn't I?" He replied, ruffling her hair. Lavi puffed out her cheeks as she pushed his hand off of her head and fixed it.

"But eight mountains?! That sounds impossible!" She protested. Garp chuckled.

"I'm sure you'll be able to do it, but not until you get much, much older." Lavi pouted at his words.

"Then I wanna be older already! I wanna punch mountains like you!" She shouted as she made punching motions with her fists. Garp started laughing again, but it was cut short by the sound of his Den Den Mushi.

Lavi stopped her movements and looked up at him as he answered the call. Her eyes lowered to look at her hands in her lap; she could feel herself start to tear up as he finished the call.

"Lavi," she heard him say. She looked up at him with a quivering lip.

"You have to leave again?" She asked. "But you've only been here for a week!" Tears started to leak out of her eyes.

"Lavi," he said, "you know that I have a job to do. I have to go stop the bad guys."

"No!" She cried out. "I don't care! I don't want you to go!" Garp frowned at the sight of his crying granddaughter. No matter how often he saw this sight, it never stopped hurting him.

******

[Present; Lavi, Age 18]

"Mr. Sanji makes the best cotton candy!" Lavi said as she munched on the pink-colored sweet.

"Mhmm!" Chopper agreed. The two were sitting under a large sun umbrella that shaded both of them as well as Robin, who sat behind them reading a book. Nami sat only a couple of feet away, tanning. "And he's been making a lot more since you joined!" Chopper added. Lavi grinned.

"Well, of course he has," said Nami. Lavi turned to look at her while still munching on her cotton candy. "You know how he is with women."

"I think I know what you mean," Lavi said. "But," she started and then tilted her head to the side while looking at the navigator; she licked the sugar off of her lips.

"But what?" Nami asked after Lavi didn't continue her sentence.

"Oh," Lavi said. "Nothing." She shrugged and then turned back around. Nami's eye twitched. Chopper looked at the women cluelessly while Robin chuckled at the exchange.

"Lavi," Robin said, bringing the sweets-loving woman's attention over to her.

"Hmm?" Lavi asked with cotton candy in her mouth.

"I've noticed that you've been eating your meals with Sanji," Robin said. Nami gasped.

"I did notice that you haven't been eating with us," the ginger said, "but I didn't know that you've been eating with him instead." Lavi shrugged again.

"I think that no one should have to eat alone," she explained. "And he accommodates for me and my diet."

"What diet?" Nami asked.

"I assume it has something to do with all the sweets that you're always eating," Robin said.

"Yeah," Lavi said, nodding. "I do not really go around telling people, but I cannot eat things that are not sweet."

"Really?" Nami asked with a furrowed brow.

"Yeah. My body does not react well to things that are not sweet."

"How interesting," Robin said softly.

"How is that even possible?" Inquired Nami, looking over at Chopper.

"It's not as strange as it sounds," Chopper began to explain. "It's rare, but it is an actual condition known as SED or Selective Eating Disorder. It's caused by an increase in the fungiform papilla—one of the structures on the upper surface of the tongue that are associated with the taste buds—during a person's childhood."

"But isn't a diet like that bad for your body?" Nami asked Lavi.

"As long as my body gets all of the nutrients that it needs, then it is fine," Lavi told her. "Usually I need to take medicine to make sure that I have the proper daily intake of everything, but the meals that Mr. Sanji has started making for me assure that I have them." Lavi finished her last bite of cotton candy and looked at Chopper thoughtfully. "It is nice to not have to take medicine everyday."

"Everyone!" Shouted Luffy, drawing everyone's attention to him. "There's an island up ahead!" Lavi's face lit up and she grinned.

"Finally!" She exclaimed. She quickly got up and jumped down to the Sunny's lawn, and then ran over to the edge of the ship to try and get a look at the land. She repositioned her hat so that the bill, unlike usual, shaded her eyes and then she stared out at the horizon. She could just make out the island that Luffy had shouted about.

"It looks like a summer island!" Lavi shouted to the others who had started to gather around on the deck to have a look at the island themselves.

"I can see a beach!" Usopp said.

"Yohoho. We should have a beach party," Brook suggested.

"Yosh!" Shouted Luffy. "With food!" Luffy started to bounce excitedly. "Sanji! Let's have a barbeque! I'm hungry!"

"You're always hungry!" Sanji yelled back at him causing Luffy to start whining as he held his stomach as if it were in pain.

"I think a barbeque is a good idea, Mr. Sanji," Lavi said politely, looking up at the blond man.

"One barbeque coming right up!" Said Sanji with a lovestruck grin on his face.

"We're not even on the island yet, you dumbass cook," Zoro grunted.

"What the hell did you just say to me, you lazy swordsman?" The two glared at each other for a moment before breaking out into a fight. Nami, who was standing next to Lavi, sighed.

"Hey, Lavi," the navigator said.

"Yes, Miss Nami?" Lavi questioned as she turned to face the ginger.

"I noticed that you've been mostly wearing Luffy's clothes," she said.

"I have," Lavi paused for a moment and decided to answer her unspoken question. "I did not bring any clothes with me other than the ones that I was wearing." Nami furrowed her brow.

"Then what did you bring in your bag?" She asked.

"Candy," Lavi answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Nami face-palmed.

"Of course," she said with a sigh. "Well, you're going to need a bathing suit." She frowned at the younger girl, but Lavi just blinked at her blankly.

"Neither yours nor Miss Robin's will fit me though," Lavi said as she motioned toward her chest to make her point.

"I know," Nami said.

"I can just wear one of Luffy's tank tops and—"

"Absolutely not! That defeats the purpose of a beach day." Lavi gave Nami a questioning look.

"Is the purpose not to have fun?" She asked hesitantly.

"That's secondary," Nami said, waving it off. "The most important part of a beach day is getting a tan! And you can barely get a tan if you're running around in a tank top." Lavi opened her mouth to protest the ginger's logic, but she stopped herself when she saw the look on Nami's face. She sighed in defeat.

"Fine. I—," began Lavi, but Nami cut her off again. Lavi's eye twitched.

"So we're going to have to figure something out for you." Lavi blankly stared at Nami's pensive face for a moment.

"I have an idea, Miss Nami," Lavi said.

"Oh?" Questioned Nami with a curious look on her face. "What is it?" Lavi didn't answer her. Instead she turned toward her brother and called out for him.

"Huh? What is it?" Luffy asked.

"I am going to steal one of your shirts," she said.

"You always do that," he pointed out.

"You will not be getting this one back, though." Luffy shrugged without hesitating.

"Okay," he said. Lavi grinned at him and then turned around to walk toward the men's quarters.

"Wait," said Nami. "I thought we agreed on no tank tops." Lavi nodded.

"We did," Lavi told her. She smiled at Nami. "Just give me about an hour." Nami gave her a skeptical look. "Trust me." Nami sighed.

"Alright," the navigator said.

"Wait for me on the beach," Lavi told her before walking away toward the men's quarters.

She entered the room and quickly looked through Luffy's T-shirts, settling for a green one that was on the thicker side. Then she went to her temporary quarters, the clinic, and sat herself on the bed. She ruffled through her messenger bag and pulled out a sewing kit. She opened it and grabbed the scissors first, cutting out several shapes from the shirt. When she was done with that, she pulled out a needle and some green thread—she shrugged off the fact that it was a different shade of green, and started sewing some of them together, and then hemming the edges. In a little over an hour after that, she found herself finishing up her piece of work.

She grinned to herself as she put her kit away.

"Miss Makino would be proud!" She told herself. "Even if a lady should never wear something so immodest." Lavi groaned after a moment when she had realized the words that had come out of her mouth. "Whatever," she muttered under her breath.

Lavi undressed herself (keeping her cap on, backwards) and put on the bikini top that she had made, tying the two straps at the bottom of it behind her back and the two straps at the top of it behind her neck. Then she put on the bikini bottom, tying the two straps on each side together.

"I think Miss Nami will be satisfied," Lavi said aloud.

"Guys! Let's play volleyball!" She heard Luffy shout. Lavi's eyes widened and she gasped. She ran out of the room and across the deck; jumped off the ship and onto the beach; and then ran at full speed, which wasn't all that fast, at Luffy.

"How dare you plan to play volleyball without me!" She shouted at her brother. At the sound of her voice, everyone, except Zoro who continued his nap by a palm tree, turned to look at her.

"Where the heck did that bathing suit come from?" Nami asked, confused, while Franky and Chopper turned back to setting up a volleyball net. Usopp stood by them, directing them, even though they didn't need any directions. And Robin, who had been reading, turned her attention back to her book.

"Ah. Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?" Said Brook. "Except I don't have any eyes. Yohohoho."

"I was going to wait for you," Luffy whined. Lavi tackled him down onto the sand.

"Liar, liar, liar," she huffed.

"It's true," he said, dragging out the last syllable.

"Liar, liar, liar," she repeated.

Sanji backed a bit away from the pair. He covered his face with his hand, willing himself not to have a nosebleed. He was used to seeing Nami and Robin wearing clothing that sometimes tended to be more on the revealing side, but Lavi—he wasn't used to _that_. He was used to seeing her in Luffy's shirts that hung a bit loosely off of her frame and Luffy's shorts which reached her knees— _not_ in clothing that left her midriff exposed and her legs completely bare.

And when she tackled Luffy— _oh god_. He had to avert his eyes. She landed on her front, leaving her backside exposed and, consequently, giving him a _perfect_ view of her butt as her bikini bottoms rode up slightly.

"Hold on a second. Lavi," Nami said. Lavi sat up and looked over at Nami. "Where did that bathing suit come from?" The ginger asked. "You said you didn't have any." Luffy sat up next to Lavi with a pout.

"I did not," she said with a smile. "That is why I took one of Luffy's shirts and made one." Nami's eyes widened.

"You made that?!" Nami asked in shock. Lavi nodded and grinned.

"It just took a little cutting and a little sewing," she explained.

"You're quite talented then," Brook said.

"Thank you, Mr. Brook," Lavi replied. Sanji pulled himself together at the sound of her statement.

"I didn't know you could sew," he said. Lavi turned to face him.

"Well, of course not, Mr. Sanji," she replied with a smile. "Because I never told you."

"Lavi," Luffy whined from beside her. "Volleyball!"

"That is right!" Lavi said, getting up and pulling Luffy up with her. Sanji watched her for a moment as she ran toward the set up net. At first he was, unsurprisingly, watching the way that every inch of her body moved as she headed forward; but he quickly found himself distracted in his thoughts—thoughts about her.

He had learned quite a bit about her since they had first met, but there was still so much he didn't know. There were still so many things about her that didn't add up for him; that he didn't understand. For example, her sewing—that was something that he hadn't expect. He had learned that she didn't care about what she wore as long as it had pockets so sewing didn't seem like a skill that she would have cared for. And yet, she was able to sew well enough that she could create her own bathing suit; that was something that not even Nami, who also knew how to sew and cared very much about what she wore, could do. On the other hand, she was a great cook so, he thought, maybe her knowledge of sewing shouldn't have been all that surprising.

'But still...' He thought to himself as he headed after Lavi.

"I am on team Luffy!" She shouted with a grin. Luffy cheered.

"We haven't even decided on team leaders," Usopp argued. Lavi stuck her tongue out at him.

"Are you saying that the captain of this crew will not be the captain of one of the teams?" Usopp didn't have a reply to that. "You know what? I think the great Captain Usopp should be the leader of the other team."

"Umm," started Usopp. "I really don't think that—"

"Yes!" Shouted Chopper excitedly, now back in his smaller form. "I wanna be on team Usopp!" Usopp sighed and slumped over dejectedly.

"Alright," Nami shouted. "I'm going to be the referee. Winning team gets their debts doubled."

"What?!" Shouted Usopp. "How does that make any sense?"

"Losing team gets their debts quadrupled."

"Wha?! Alright. Then I choose...Sanji to be on my team!"

"Huh?" Sanji said. "I wanna be on Lavi-chwan's team~"

"Rules are rules, Sanji," Nami told him.

"Of course, Nami-swan~."

"Zoro!" Luffy shouted. "Come be on my team." Zoro grumbled a bit before getting up and joining his captain on his side of the volleyball court.

"I choose Franky!" Usopp shouted.

"That leaves me with Luffy," said Brook. "I hope this doesn't make me build up a sweat. Even though I can't sweat. Yohoho."

"What about you, Robin-chwan~?" Asked Sanji. Robin smiled.

"I'm fine watching on the sidelines," she said.

"Of course~," he said.

"Okay," said Nami. "So teams are...Team Luffy with Lavi, Zoro, and Brook. And Team Usopp with Chopper, Sanji, and Franky."

Each of the teams stood in place while Nami held the volleyball in her hand.

"Ready," said Nami. "Set." She got ready to throw the ball. "Go!" She shouted, throwing the ball up into the air between the two teams.

They each scrambled for the ball, but Luffy got to it first by stretching his arm forward. He hit the ball into the opposing team's side.

"No! That's not fair! No powers!" Shouted Usopp. "Foul! Foul!" But his cries were ignored as Chopper shifted into heavy point to hit the ball back to Luffy.

The game continued on like this for some time and, as it did, both Brook and Sanji proved to be weaknesses for their respective teams. Brook, being as light as he is, was easily overpowered by the force of the volleyball when it hit him, and Sanji was just being Sanji—he kept getting distracted by Nami keeping score and calling out fouls on the sidelines, and by Lavi, on the other side of the net, running around and jumping up to hit the ball.

Team Luffy was overwhelmingly in the lead, much owed to the fact that Luffy and Lavi seemed to be perfectly in sync with each other, when the ground beneath them started to shake. Everyone stopped what they were doing and exchanged looks of confusion. Then, as soon as it had started, the shaking stopped. It was quiet for a moment and as Nami opened her mouth to say something, a swarm of small (no larger than the palm of a hand) crabs started to emerge from beneath the sand.

"Where the hell did these things come from?!" shouted Zoro as he tried to shake off the little crabs that had started to crawl up his legs.

"Yow! We must have disturbed it with our playing," said Franky as he brushed them off of himself.

"Noooo," wailed Usopp as he tried to run away from them. "Why can't we ever have a nice, relaxing day?"

Chopper, in his walk point, and Brook both ran past him with Brook taking the lead. On the other side of the beach, Robin remained at her seat, using the extra limbs that she had materialized to keep the small crustaceans away from her. Sanji stood in front of Nami and Lavi trying, and failing, to keep the creatures away from the pair. As a result, Nami was left to do her best to shake them off of her. Lavi, on the other hand, did not bother to do so. Instead, she sat cross-legged on the ground with her cheeks puffed out, letting the crabs crawl all over her, muttering about how the "stupid crabs" ruined their game. And Luffy—

"Shishishi. That tickles," he said as he let the crabs crawl onto him and all over his body.

Everyone, save for Luffy, tensed as the ground started to shake again; this time, it shook even more than before. The sand rose and fell to the side as something surfaced from underneath it—something large. Many of their eyes widened as a huge crab appeared in front of them.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Cried out Usopp.

"It looks like these may have been its children," said Robin. "I hope it doesn't plan to kill us and feed us to them." Usopp and Chopper screamed at the possibility and started to run around in circles.

"Kill it! Kill it!" Usopp shouted.

"Tch," started Zoro. "My swords are on the ship."

"Wha?! Why would you leave them there?"

"It's supposed to be a vacation day!" Zoro argued. "Why would I need them?!"

"Alas," said Brook, "I am in the same position as you."

"Franky!" Shouted Chopper. "Save us!"

"I would," he said, "but these little crabs are crawling in everywhere and messing with my weapons. This is so not suuupeeer."

Usopp looked to the others to see Robin casually reading her book and Sanji swirling around, talking about how he was going to protect Nami and Lavi. Luffy was nowhere to be found.

"We're doomed. We're doomed. We're doomed," Usopp repeated to himself.

"Hey!" Usopp heard Luffy's voice shout. He looked in the direction from where it had come from and saw Luffy standing right in front of the crab. Usopp face-palmed, knowing that this could lead to nothing good.

"You're really big for a crab," Luffy told the crustacean. "Do you wanna be my pet?" He asked with a close-eyed grin. The crab looked at Luffy for a moment and then moved its claw.

Lavi's eyes widened and she quickly stood up from the sand, brushing all of the small crabs off of her body.

"Luffy!" she shouted just as the crab swung its claw toward him at full force, sending the pirate captain flying toward the ocean.

Lavi immediately removed the hat from her head and shoved it into Sanji's chest. He grabbed it without a second thought.

"Take care of this please," she said and then ran forward as fast as she could toward the ocean.

Lavi's breathing was erratic as she ran into the water. She dived in as soon as she could, frantically searching around for her brother. As she swam deeper into the ocean, a familiar unsettling feeling filled her stomach. She furrowed her brow, trying to figure out where she had felt that before; the answer was practically on the tip of her tongue. It didn't hit her until she finally caught sight of Luffy's sinking form.

She started to panic and closed her eyes tightly.

_No. No. No._

Her voice echoed in her head. She opened her eyes, setting them on Luffy, and her panic rose. She tried her best to swim over to him, but it felt like something was restraining her dominant arm, making it hard for her to fight against the current of the water.

_No._

She tried her best to reach out for him, but every single time that he seemed to be close enough, he ended up just out of her reach.

_I need to try harder._

She felt her air depleting. She was losing oxygen quickly.

_I cannot. No. I need to get to Luffy._

Her lungs started to burn and her vision started to blur.

_No. Luffy, I—_

She opened her mouth and screamed out for Luffy causing water to immediately rush in through her throat. She brought her left hand up to cover her mouth which caused her to realize that there was nothing actually restraining her arm. The only thing that was restraining her was the fear that had managed to invade her every sense.

_No. This is not a dream. This is real._

She swam forward as fast as she could and grabbed onto Luffy's hand.

_I will not..._

She quickly swam back up.

_...lose anyone else!_

She gasped for breath when she broke the surface of the ocean and coughed up some of the sea water that she had swallowed. She looked over at Luffy and held onto him tightly, keeping a tight grip on him as she made her way back to the others.

"Chopper!" She shouted as she reached the shore. She walked back to where she had been before, with Nami and Sanji. She laid the unconscious Luffy down on the sand, kneeling down beside him. Robin, who wasn't too far away, used her abilities to keep the smaller crabs away from her captain as Chopper checked on him. The little reindeer pushed any water that Luffy had swallowed out of his body and then made sure that his pulse was normal.

"He's going to be alright," Chopper told Lavi causing her to sigh in relief. The action led to her having a small coughing fit. Chopper immediately moved to her side. "Are you alright? Did you swallow any water?" Lavi shook her head.

"I am fine, Doctor Chopper," she told him. Chopper gave her a worried frown.

"Are you sure, Lavi-chan?" She heard Sanji ask her. She looked up to see him standing there with concern written on his face.

"Of course," she said, standing up with a grin on her face. She held out her hand to him. "I knew that I could trust you to take care of it."

Sanji placed her cap in her outstretched hand before starting to twirl around with hearts in his eyes babbling about how honored he was to have her place her trust in him. Lavi placed the cap back on her head, bill facing behind her, and giggled at the chef's antics.

"How are we going to get rid of these things?" Nami groaned in frustration, drawing Lavi's attention to her. Lavi watched the navigator angrily plucking off a few of the smaller crabs off of her.

"The little crabs look like they've calmed down," said Chopper from beside the still unconscious Luffy.

Lavi nodded in agreement. The crabs had mostly stopped crawling all over them and had instead retreated back toward their presumed mother.

"But that still leaves the big one," said Nami.

"We are gonna have to fight it!" Said Lavi with a grin, but that grin quickly fell as soon as she saw the crab's large claw heading toward the group.

Chopper froze while Nami squealed and threw herself down onto the ground. Lavi grabbed onto the front of the still-swooning cook's open shirt, pulling him down, face-first, to the sandy ground beneath them. The crab's claw swung a few feet above the ground—high enough that it missed those that were now laying on the ground, but low enough that Lavi, who had remained standing, could grab and pull herself onto said claw.

Sanji quickly pushed himself up off of the ground, spitting out the sand that had managed to enter his mouth. He turned around with a confused look on his face to see Lavi on top of the crab's claw. His eyes widened as worry gripped his heart.

"That is your third strike!" Lavi said to the crab as she ran up its claw's appendage. The crab moved its other claw toward her, but she was able to reach the top of its body's shell before it could make contact with her, causing the crab to only hit itself.

Sanji stood himself up. She had pushed him out of the way, he had realized. And now she was up there, in a dangerous situation. He cursed under his breath. He should be the one up there, he thought. He should be protecting her from the monstrously-sized crustacean.

Unaware of the cook's worry, Lavi squatted down on top of the crab and knocked her knuckles on the top of it lightly.

"Our game is ruined now," she said. "But you can still make it up to my brother and Mr. Sanji. I am sure that both of them would enjoy..." She paused as she pulled her left arm up and then back down, landing a punch on the top of the crab.

The crab froze as the sound of something cracking resounded in the area. Lavi smirked as she watched the creature's shell crack beneath her fist, and then she grinned as the crack extended outward from there and across the rest of the shell.

Sanji sighed in relief as the crab fell onto the ground with its shell cracked open. His muscles relaxed knowing that Lavi was no longer in danger. He saw that the smaller crabs all started to scurry back underground.

"About that barbeque..." Lavi said loudly enough for everyone to hear. At the sound of the word, Luffy was immediately pulled out of his unconscious state.

"Barbeque?" Luffy asked. He looked over at the dead crab in confusion and then up at his sister who was still squatting on top of it. "Oi, Lavi! You killed my pet!" Lavi's eye twitched and she jumped off of the crab.

"It almost killed you!" She reminded him.

"Well," said Luffy, "it looks like it's gonna be yummy!" He grinned and stood up. "Sanji!" He shouted.

"Already on it," the blond said as he made his way toward the crab to examine the meat. The entire time, though, he kept Lavi within his sight. He couldn't shake off the feelings of fear and guilt that enveloped him—fear that something else would happen and that his beloved Lavi-chan would be put in danger again, and guilt that, not only had he failed to protect her as was his duty as a man, but that he had been the cause for her endangerment.

"It seems like you _are_ pretty strong then," Zoro said walking up to Lavi.

"Told you," Luffy said. "But she's still not strong enough to beat me."

"Who said I was not?!" Exclaimed Lavi. "I have beat you a bunch of times before."

"But I beat you a bunch more times!" Responded Luffy.

"Nuh uh. I beat you more!" Lavi argued, sticking her tongue at him.

"No! Plus, there's no way you can beat me if you could never beat Ace."

"What?!" Shouted Lavi incredulously. "You never beat Ace either!"

"But you fought him way more than I did!"

"Those random fights do not count!" Lavi said. Her face started to get flustered knowing that Luffy was right. "Only the official fights count!"

"That's not what you said before," Luffy recalled. Lavi puffed up her cheeks as she watched Luffy start grinning again with the satisfaction that he had won the argument with his sister. She narrowed her eyes at him and then tackled him down to the ground.

"Wha? Lavi," Luffy whined as he struggled in the sand with his sister.

"If you think you can win then fight me!"

Zoro sighed and walked away from the fighting pair. He should probably get back to his nap, he thought.  



	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a bit of foreshadowing in this chapter for stuff that's going to happen way later in the fic.

"Mr. Sanji!" Lavi cried out as she hopped toward the man, kicking up sand in the process, with a large grin on her face.

Sanji pulled himself out of his thoughts at the sound of her voice. He briefly turned away from the crab meat that he was grilling and toward her, smiling at her energeticness.

"Do you happen to have any sweets?" She asked as she stopped right in front of him.

Everyone in the crew was munching on the meat that Sanji had cooked, except for him, who was cooking the last of what was left, and Lavi, who could not stomach even the thought of eating it. Of course, that didn't stop her from being hungry.

"I do not have any with me right now since I do not have any pockets." She motioned toward her lower body, where she would normally be wearing pants, to emphasize her statement. Sanji blushed as his eyes trailed down her legs for a moment before averting his eyes back to what he was cooking. "And I would rather not go all the way back to the ship for that," she explained.

"Well," he began to answer, "if you don't mind waiting a few more minutes, I can have a plate prepared for you." Lavi's eyes flickered down to the meat on the grill and then back up to Sanji's face. She tilted her head, curious as to what the man was planning.

"Okay!" She said before seating herself on a beach chair that was only a few feet away from him.

She would have loved to watch him cook and prepare the food—partially out of curiosity, but also partially because she just enjoyed watching him work—but she knew that, because of where she was sitting, he could easily catch her staring. So instead, she looked out at the sea.

Within a few minutes, just as he had promised, she found a plate being held out to her. She blinked rapidly a few times as she was pulled out of her trance and then took hold of the plate. She grinned at the sight of the food.

"Thank you, Mr. Sanji!" She said gleefully.

She watched him sit down next to her with his own plate of food. That didn't surprise her since they had gotten into the habit of eating their meals together; what _did_ surprise her was the fact that he was being so quiet—no twirls, no endearing nicknames, and, most notable, no 'you're welcome'. Lavi raised an eyebrow as she watched him take a bite of his food. He had a far off look of his face and something told her that she should be worried.

Lavi turned back to her plate and popped a piece of the crab meat (which Sanji had so kindly cut up for her) in her mouth. She pursed her lips as she took note of the different flavors.

"There is sugar..." Lavi began, pulling Sanji's attention toward her. "Both white and brown. There is vanilla extract," she continued while still munching on the meat. "And honey." She swallowed the food. "The quince jam is a nice touch to this dish!"

"You could tell that I used both white _and_ brown sugar?" Sanji asked, taken aback.

"Of course!" She said, looking over at him.

"That's amazing." Lavi blushed.

"But I can only really distinguish the sweet stuff," she said, attempting to brush off the compliment. "I can barely tell what else is in this."

When Sanji didn't respond to her comment, Lavi looked away from him and took another bite of her food as she tried to ignore Sanji's stare. That task, however, was proving itself difficult for her and she found herself getting flustered. When she turned to look at him again, after a few bites, she found that he appeared to be lost in thought again. Lavi frowned and set her plate aside; she leaned over slightly to get close enough to him to snap her fingers right in front of his face.

"Huh?" He questioned with wide eyes as he was abruptly pulled out of his musings. He blinked hard a few times before focusing his eyes on Lavi who was in front of him.

"Are you...alright?" She asked him in a concerned tone.

"Y-yeah," he answered, having been caught off guard. Lavi raised her eyebrows to express her skepticism.

"Liar," she said, stretching out the word. He looked away from her, guilt rising, knowing that she was right. "Will you please tell me what's wrong?"

He looked back at her as she asked the question and realized his mistake too late. The way that she was looking at him—he knew that there was no way that he could lie to her now.

"I—," began Sanji after a moment. He looked down at the half-filled plate on his lap and scratched his right cheek. "I'm not worthy of being in your presence." A depressed aura settled over him. Lavi tilted her head to the side. "Because of me, a lovely lady was put in danger." He looked up at her and met her eyes. She could see the guilt swimming in them and smiled.

"And what does you putting a lovely lady in danger have to do with me?" Said Lavi. Sanji gave her a questioning look. "After all, I am not a lady." Sanji opened his mouth to say something, but she continued before he could. "So that means that you are completely worthy of my presence. And I am glad that you are. I would miss if you if you were not around." She grinned at him and Sanji couldn't help but feel lighter at the sight. A warmth settled in his chest at her confession.

"Lavi-chwan would miss me~," he said in a singsong voice with hearts appearing in his eyes.

"Of course, Mr. Prince," said Lavi.

"Mr. Prince?" He questioned, back in his normal state. He briefly remembered his time in Alabasta, when he had used the same exact name.

"Yeah!" She answered cheerfully. "Because I am your knight in shining armor. I _did_ come to your rescue after all." Lavi saw Sanji deflate once again at the reminder that he had failed to protect her; she sighed at the sight.

"You _did_ protect my hat, though," she pointed out to him, causing him to perk back up. "And I am very grateful for that." Lavi reached her hand up to touch the cap on her head. "It is very special to me since it is all that I have left of my brother. I knew that I could trust you with it!"

Sanji's eyes widened at the mention of her brother. He had come to the conclusion that the hat was important to her, but he hadn't expected it to be for that reason. He thought back to the freckled man that he had only known for a short period of time, and noticed a sorrowful look in Lavi's eyes that did not complement the grin that was spread across her face.

Sanji opened his mouth to speak, but a shouting Luffy managed to stop him before he could, and pulled Lavi's attention away from the cook.

"Let's have a campfire, guys!" The rubber man shouted. Lavi gasped and jumped up from her seat in excitement.

"Yes!" She shouted, jumping in place. "Campfire means s'mores, and s'mores are the best!"

"Campfire means more meat!" Luffy added, practically drooling at the thought.

"You literally just finished eating!" Nami screamed at him.

"So?" Luffy asked while picking his nose. The ginger sighed.

"S'mores! S'mores! S'mores!" Lavi chanted. "I will get the firewood! Just give me…30 seconds!" She turned back to her plate and managed to neatly devour her food in exactly 30 seconds. "Yosh!" she cheered after swallowing the last bite. She handed the plate to Sanji. "Take this for me please," she told him. "Thank you!" she added, rushing away with Luffy before Sanji could even respond.

"Every time that I think she can't prove to us any further that she's related to Luffy, she does," said Nami.

"But she didn't make a mess like him," pointed out Chopper.

"How is that even humanly possible?" asked Usopp.

"At this point," said Nami, "I'm starting to think that everyone in that family is inhuman."

******

"Do not worry about that, Mr. Sanji," Lavi told the cook ignoring the rest of the crew who were either calmly eating s'mores or boisterously arguing over who could put the most marshmallows on theirs. "I like making my own s'mores," she told him as she finished putting a few marshmallows through the stick that was in her hands. "Plus, I have learned that no one else can seem to get them right."

"Of course," Sanji said, falling to the ground, careful with the plate of s'mores in his hand, with a depressed aura settling around him. "How could I have ever thought that I could satisfy someone with such a refined palate?"

"Hah!" Lavi pulled her marshmallows away from the fire and squatted down next to the blond. "There is no way that I can be considered as having a refined palate." Sanji sat himself up and was about to protest when she spoke again. "I will take one of your s'mores. I should not judge something without tasting it. That is bad etiquette." Sanji raised an eyebrow at her last phrase. Lavi didn't notice and grabbed one of the sweet treats before standing up.

"Hey, Sanji! Do you have any more s'mores?" Nami shouted from the other side of the campfire.

"Always for you, Nami-swan~" Sanji replied, twirling over toward the navigator.

"Can I have some of those, Sanji?" Luffy whined.

"No! I made these for the ladies! Go make your own!" Luffy sunk to the floor with a pout on his face. Lavi sighed at the sight. She realized that she was going to have to make some for her brother along with for herself. She had to finish the s'more that was currently in her right hand, though.

She scrunched up her face in apprehension and then hesitantly took a bite out of it. Her eyes widened once she had fully tasted it. She looked down at the treat, over at Sanji and then back at the treat before resting her gaze back on Sanji. This was a first for her. She had never met anyone whose s'mores she could ever deem good enough, but these—they were absolutely perfect.

She looked at the man in awe, watching him go from swooning over Nami and Robin to standing by the fire with a contented smile on his face and three sticks full of marshmallows in each hand. This— _all of this_ —was what she had meant to say to Nami earlier that day. All Lavi could do was start her sentence, but she didn't know how to finish it; she knew what she had wanted to say, she just didn't know how to put it into words.

"I think I know what you mean," she had told Nami. "But—" she had started but never finished.

'But...,' she thought to herself now. 'But he is more than just a man who swoons over women. It is…more complicated than that. That is not the only way that he acts; he has shown me several other sides to him. He is—." Lavi furrowed her brow as she thought about it, but she still couldn't quite put what she thought into words. She felt herself starting to grow frustrated and took another bite of the s'more in her hand rather aggressively.

She tore her gaze away from Sanji and brought it to the stick of marshmallows still in her left hand. She needed to learn more about him, she thought. She needed to understand him better. Maybe then she could put her thoughts into words. She hoped that then she could so that she could ease the frustration that she felt. Otherwise, she mused, this man would really be the death of her.

******

Sanji pulled a cigarette out of his pack as he stared out at the beach from the deck of the Sunny. Most of the crew lay fast asleep on the sand after having had their fill of food and fun. Only Franky and the girls had actually bothered to head to their beds to sleep—well, the girls except Lavi.

Sanji flicked his lighter open as his eyes scanned the shoreline, and briefly held the flame against the end of his cigarette to light it. His eyes stopped when they landed on the figure of the only other person who was, just as he had expected, still awake.

The cook, now in clothes that more resembled his usual attire, tucked the lighter back into his pants' pocket before making his way toward the lone woman.

Said woman sighed as she watched the waves created by the ocean repeatedly washing over the sandy shore. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them while her chin lay on top. The hair that peaked out from beneath her hat whipped around behind her as the wind blew against her body. The chill of the breeze caused goosebumps to form on her skin and a shiver to crawl up her spine. She had started to bury her bare feet in the sand when she felt something suddenly cover her bare shoulders.

She found herself engulfed in a familiar scent as a warmth started to settle over her body. She lifted her head up from her knees and quickly recognized that it was Sanji's suit jacket that was draped over her. She tilted her head up and turned it slightly over to the right in time to see the owner of the jacket taking a seat beside her. She smiled at him in a way that silently expressed her gratitude and then turned back to face the ocean.

The smell of spices that always surrounded the chef clung heavily to the jacket making it impossible for her to not inhale the smell. But Lavi found herself not minding it this time. It was not the most pleasant smell in the world, but—

Lavi was snapped out of her thoughts when she heard Sanji calling out her name. Lavi turned to look at him with questioning eyes.

"I apologize, Mr. Sanji," she told him. She noticed that there was a look of concern spread across his face. "Did you say something?"

"Are you alright?" He asked her.

"Of course," she said. "Why would I not be?"

"You're still having trouble sleeping," he said in a tone that showed that it was a statement rather than a question.

"I am fine. I have gone without sleep for longer than this." Sanji frowned.

"That doesn't make it any better," he said. Sanji felt his heart break at the melancholic smile that she gave him in response. He exhaled smoke and removed his cigarette from between his lips before continuing. "Let me help you," he requested.

Lavi's brow furrowed at his words. Expressing concern for her was one thing, but offering to aid her—that was different. It was something that she would have never expected from him; hell, from anyone.

"Please," he pleaded with her. "I can't just sit by and watch a woman hurting without at least trying to do something about it." Lavi's eyes softened.

"Who said I was hurting?" She asked him with a small smile.

"Lavi-chan," he began, but stopped when he heard her giggle.

"You really are a remarkable man, huh?" She said with a small, but genuine, grin on her face. Sanji felt his cheeks heat up at the compliment.

His eyes briefly followed the sand that slid down her skin as she stood up. She slightly lifted his jacket from her shoulders so that she could stick her arms through the sleeves. Because of their size difference, the sleeves hung down to the base of her fingers while the jacket itself reached midway down her butt. She carefully buttoned it up and her grin widened as she stuck her hands inside the pockets on either side of the jacket.

Sanji's breath hitched at the sight. He couldn't help it when his eyes trailed from the cute grin that she sported on her face and down her almost completely bare legs; and he couldn't help it when his mind wished that she were wearing nothing underneath his jacket. He couldn't help it because that's just how his mind worked.

"I really like this jacket," Lavi said, looking over at him. "It has perfectly sized pockets!" Sanji placed his cigarette back into his mouth, smiling at her joy. He found his curiosity surfacing again.

"Why do you like pockets so much, Lavi-chan?" He asked her.

"I have not told you?" She asked. Sanji shook his head.

"You haven't told me a lot of things," he replied, remembering her words from earlier that day. Lavi sat herself back down on the sand.

"I like them because they give me somewhere to keep my candy," Lavi explained. Sanji raised his eyebrow. A part of him told him that he should have expected an answer like that. "It is why I know how to sew, actually."

"I don't understand," Sanji said.

"I learned so that I could add pockets to things," she clarified, grinning. Sanji couldn't help the laugh that erupted from his chest. Lavi's grin fell and her cheeks puffed up at the sound. She assumed that Sanji had found her reasoning to be silly.

"You're the remarkable one here, Lavi-chan," he said after his laughter died down. Lavi's eyes widened and her cheeks deflated at his words, starting to turn a shade of crimson.

A contented smile settled itself onto the blond's face and his eyes softened as he watched the woman beside him. He realized that there _was_ this childlike innocence that surrounded her in a similar way that it did with their captain; but the maturity that she had shown him that she possessed—when she had spoken to him about Luffy, for example—vastly outweighed her brother's. Sanji took a deep inhale of his cigarette, holding it in his lungs for a while before exhaling the smoke that had gathered there.

"What other talents do you possess that you haven't told me about?" Sanji decided to ask her. Lavi held a thoughtful look on her face for a moment.

"If you consider them talents," Lavi said as she stared down at her wiggling toes. "I can play the piano; and I can dance—like waltzing and stuff." Sanji's face brightened at the information.

"Lavi-chwan is so talented~" he said as he blew out smoke in the shape of hearts. "Would you give me the honor of a dance then?" He asked in a more serious tone.

"You? Of course!" She told him.

Sanji grinned from ear to ear, his cigarette held between his teeth, at her answer. He stood up and held his hand out toward her. Lavi looked up at his hand, following it with her eyes up until they reached his face. She gave him a playful smile.

"I do not dance without music, though," she said. "But sometime in the future, definitely. You can hold me to that."

Sanji brought his outstretched hand up to his mouth and grabbed his cigarette between his fingers. He pulled it out of his mouth and let his arm drop down beside him. He exhaled smoke as the burning cigarette, which was almost finished, sat in his hand. Lavi jumped up from her seat and tilted her head up to look at the taller man.

"Since I told you why I like pockets so much, how about you tell me why you like cigarettes so much. Do they not taste really bitter?" Lavi questioned, sticking her tongue out in disgust. Sanji smiled at her blatant lack of care for propriety—from what he had observed, it meant that she had grown to be very comfortable around him.

"They help with stress," he said. Lavi furrowed her brow, not understanding how something that _wasn't_ a sweet could help with that. "The ones that I smoke are fairly bitter," he continued. "But there do actually exist some sweeter ones. There are these vanilla ones—"

"What?!" Lavi shouted in astonishment. Her face was bright and her eyes had widened considerably. "Really?!" Sanji raised an eyebrow at her overexcited reaction. "I love vanilla!" The cook's eyes widened.

"No!" He suddenly cried out. Lavi's face switched to one of confusion.

"What?" She asked. Sanji firmly placed his hands on her shoulders.

"I know what you're thinking, and I will not let you try them." Lavi pouted.

"But why? You said that they are sweet!"

"I know what I said, but—"

" _And_ you smoke all the time. What is the problem?"

"They're—." Sanji paused; were it any other person saying those words, he would not care, but Lavi—she had this innocence that he wanted to protect. And there was just something so inherently not innocent about smoking. He knew that he had to be careful with his next words. He didn't want to sound like a hypocrite.

"They're not as sweet as you're thinking," the man explained. "You won't like them."

"But I have no way of knowing if I will or will not unless I try them," she pointed out.

"Lavi-chan," said Sanji in a slightly distressed tone.

Lavi tried her best to stand firm in her desire to sate her curiosity, but she found herself unable to ignore the pleading look in Sanji's eye. She crossed her arms over her chest and puffed out her cheeks as she turned her face to the side.

"Fine," she said in a begrudging, but childish tone.

Sanji sighed in relief when she finally gave in; but as she looked away from him, he started to feel remorse over his words even though it was obvious that she was overdramatizing her displeasure. He pulled his hands away from her and hung his head down in shame; he never wanted to upset a woman even if it was for her own good.

Lavi could see his remorse surfacing on his face with the corner of her eye; it only made her puzzlement about him grow—what possible reason, she pondered, could he have to feel regretful? Lavi deflated her cheeks and turned back to look at him. Regardless of his reasoning, she knew, she didn't like him having that look on his face. She much preferred his smile, even when it was silly and amorous, or even his look of concern that he kept directing toward her.

"You know what, Mr. Sanji?" began Lavi. Sanji lifted his head back up and saw a smile back on her face. The sight made his guilt start to subside. "I do not really know much about how you joined the crew. I know that you used to work at the Baratie restaurant and that you joined my brother before reaching the Grand Line, but my knowledge ends there."

Sanji smiled as he thought back to the events that led to him joining the crew.

"Long story short," he said, "Luffy is the kind of idiot that will refuse your refusal, and then somehow manage to change your mind about refusing him." Lavi chuckled.

"That sounds like him," she said. "I want the long story, though," she added, seating herself back on the sand, cross-legged.

Having finished his previous cigarette, Sanji reached into his pocket and pulled out another one. He lit it before taking a seat right next to Lavi, and then took a long drag of it before speaking.

"But there are better things than listening to me talk about how I ended up here for someone as lovely as you to do," he said in a lighthearted voice.

"Maybe," she responded, watching the waves once again. "But even if that is true, I think I would enjoy myself more being here with you." It took Sanji a moment to process her words, but once he had, his cheeks started to heat up. It took him a few seconds to gather himself again.

"Lavi-chwan says such sweet things~" he said in a half-singsong voice, causing Lavi's cheeks to mirror how his had looked only moments ago. However, Sanji didn't notice. He was more focused on how he would begin his story. It had to be perfect for her, after all.

Just as he had figured it out and was about to speak, he had to stop to suppress a yawn. It had been an eventful day and he was exhausted, but he refused to fall asleep knowing that Lavi would probably not. He didn't want to leave her alone. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes as best he could before proceeding to tell her the story of him joining the crew.

Just as Lavi had expected, she quickly found herself captivated by every single word that came out of his mouth. Still—between the smell of the salty sea air mixing in with the blond's (not unpleasant) scent of spices and nicotine, the sound of the ocean waves hitting the shore mixing in with his deep, smooth voice, and the fact that she hadn't had much sleep in several days—Lavi found herself being lulled to sleep about midway through his story. The cook himself didn't notice until he felt her head fall onto his shoulder.

He stopped mid-sentence and his eyes widened at the sudden weight on his shoulder, but when he turned his head slightly and caught sight of the sleeping woman, his eyes instantly softened and his lips lifted into a smile; it made him glad to know that she would finally be getting some sleep, and proud to know that it was at least partially because of him.

He kept his head angled toward her for some time, in a way that let him observe her, yet didn't disturb her position. She held a peaceful expression on her face, but the lack of distance between the two made it impossible for him to ignore the dark circles that had formed underneath her eyes. He immensely wished that she would tell him why she was having difficulty sleeping. He sighed at the more solemn direction that his thoughts had taken.

He turned away from her and stared out at the horizon. He was dead tired; his cigarette had burned out and he wanted another one, but he dared not move even an inch in fear of waking her up. But, he thought, it would be fine if he just closed his eyes for a moment, right? He wouldn't fall asleep, he decided. He would just rest his eyes for a moment.

With that, Sanji let his lids fall; the momentary loss of his vision caused him to focus more on his other senses. As he listened to Lavi's soft breathing, his own became synced with hers, but he didn't notice the change in the pace of his breaths. He was too fixated on her scent. He noted that it was the same as when they had first met; it was like sugar, like cotton candy, like vanilla. And it made sense now that she smelled that way, but it was still difficult for him to wrap his head around—how could someone possibly smell so…so pleasant?

The blond's thoughts started to drift away from him as his sleep deprivation started to catch up with him, but before he could fall into a deep slumber, he was awoken by the sound of soft whimpering. He opened his eyes with a look of confusion on his face until he realized that the source of the noise was the woman beside him who was still asleep.

"Lavi," he called out for her softly. He reached out with his right hand and gently touched her cheek. He noticed her furrowed brow and he started to quickly make connections—it was a nightmare, he realized; that's what was causing her to not sleep properly. He frowned and placed his hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake.

Her eyes abruptly snapped open and she pulled away from whoever was touching her. She backed away, breathing heavily, trying to determine where she was. At the feeling of the sand between her fingers, she quickly realized that she was on a beach. She caught sight of the ocean waves and her breathing began to even out. Her gaze moved away from the waves to the beach, freezing at the sight of Sanji, only a few feet away from her with a surprised look on his face. Lavi's eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. She hastily stood up from the ground and took a few steps closer to him, making sure to avoid eye contact.

"I—," Lavi started, attempting to speak, but she found her voice failing her. Sanji stood up as well, his face expressing a vast amount of worry.

"Lavi-chan," he began, reaching out to her, but she quickly stepped back and away from him. Sanji pulled his arm back and frowned. "Are you alright?" he asked; she didn't answer him, though. Instead she unbuttoned his jacket that she was still wearing. She pulled it off and shoved it into his hands.

"I am sorry for any trouble that I may have caused you, Mr. Sanji," she said softly and in a polite tone that he hadn't heard over the last few days. He watched her quickly turn around and walk as fast as she could toward the ship and away from him.

Any fatigue that he had felt before had been chased away. His mind was racing after what had just happened. He wanted so badly to understand what was going on with her and to help her—because she was a lady in need, but also just because she was _her_. Lavi was someone that he couldn't just simply walk away from.

He rubbed his eyes trying to get out the image that had imprinted itself onto his mind—the look on her face, in her eyes, immediately after she had woken up. It was one that he hadn't seen on her before and it just looked so out of place; it was one that he hoped he would never have to see on her again because it just absolutely killed him. It was the look of pure and utter fear.  



	8. Chapter 8

**[12 Years Ago; Lavi, Age 6; Luffy, Age 7; Sabo & Ace, Age 10]**

"Well, let's just leave it until the time comes," said Ace, causing the other three children to quiet down. "Maybe we'll set out independently," he said. 

"Not me!" Shouted Lavi with fierce determination audible in her voice and visible on her face. "I'm going to be with Luffy no matter what!" Luffy grinned at his sister's words, looking at her from across the tree stump that they were all gathered around.  

"Oh," started Luffy as his eyes set on the large bottle of sake that Ace carried in his hand. "You stole that from Dadan!" He pointed out, but Ace didn't acknowledge him. 

"Did you guys know," Ace asked as he popped open the bottle, "we can become brothers if we exchange this cup of sake?" Ace poured some of the alcoholic drink into each of the four red sake cups that sat on the tree stump before them.  

"Brothers? Really?" Asked Luffy. He then looked over to his sister. "What about Lavi?"  

"She can be our sister," said Sabo with a grin. 

"Yes!" Said Lavi, jumping up. "And I'll be the best sister!" 

"You'll be the only sister," Ace said as he put down the bottle of sake after having filled all of the cups. Lavi puffed up her cheeks and glared at Ace. 

"You wanna fight?!" She challenged him. Ace was about to respond, when Sabo cut him off. 

"Not now, guys!" Sabo said. Lavi and Ace both huffed at the same time and looked away from each other. Luffy laughed at the pair while Sabo sighed from exasperation. He grabbed his cup of sake and the others followed his lead. 

"As brothers," Sabo began as he held out his sake cup. "We—" 

"Hey!" Shouted Lavi with puffed up cheeks. 

"Let me finish," Sabo said with a chuckle. "As brothers, we'll always have each others' backs." He looked over at Lavi with a grin. "And I know you will too. But it's our duty as big brothers to take care of our little sister." Lavi looked down at the ground and puffed up her cheeks as they started to turn red. 

"Ooh!" Said Luffy, holding out his own cup. "My turn!” Luffy’s grin stretched wider as he thought about his next words. “Since we’re gonna be brothers, that means you guys are gonna have to share your meat with me.” Lavi deflated her cheeks and giggled at her brother’s words.  

“Idiot,” said Ace. “That doesn't mean that at all!” Luffy pouted.  

“But Sabo said we have to have each others’ backs. That means you guys have to share your meat with me.”  

“Those are two completely unrelated things!” 

“Luffy,” Sabo said. “You said we have to share our meat with you, but you didn't say that you'll share yours with us.” 

“Because I don't want to share mine!” Sabo sighed. 

“That's exactly what I expected,” he mumbled. 

“Then I'm definitely not sharing mine with you!” Ace shouted at the younger boy. Luffy pouted again. 

“Aww,” he said. 

“It's my turn now!” Lavi cheered with a grin and held out her cup of sake. "I don't care what people say. I don't care that we don't share the same blood. This is my family." She paused. "It's little and it's broken, but it's still good." The other three gave her approving grins. 

"When we become pirates," said Ace, holding out his cup, "we might not be on the same ship, but our brotherhood will always be with us! Wherever you are, whatever you do, we'll always be bonded together! So from now on, we're brothers and sister!"  

They touched their cups in a toast and drank.  

***

**[Present; Lavi, Age 18; Luffy, Age 19]**

"Hey, Mr. Sanji," Lavi started as she looked at his pink apron in her hands. 

"Yes, Lavi-chwan~?" He questioned as he pulled out the ingredients that he would need to make lunch. 

"I do not mean to overstep my boundaries," she said, looking over at the blond, "but would you allow me to sew a pocket onto this apron? It is very inconvenient to not have one." Sanji looked over at the woman and gave her an affectionate smile.  

"Of course! You can do whatever your heart desires~." Lavi returned his smile with an appreciative one.  

"We should really get to cooking," she said as she tied the apron around her waist. Sanji nodded in agreement and turned back toward his ingredients.  

The pair moved skillfully around the kitchen—like two dancers performing a well-practiced duet. They knew exactly what the other needed with the exchange of only a few words—like moving to a rhythm that only the two of them could hear.  

They were _perfectly_ in sync. 

Or at least they _were_ until Sanji suddenly froze, which caused an unaware Lavi to bump right into him and almost spill the batter that she had made. She turned around to look at the male with a confused expression, which only grew to show more confusion when she caught him with a wide-eyed look of horror on his face. She turned, following his gaze, and her mouth turned upward into a small, amused smile as she realized what he was staring at. 

"I did not peg you for someone who was afraid of bugs," Lavi said as she watched the careful movements of a spider sitting on the countertop by the sink. Sanji jumped as her words snapped him out of his fear-induced stupor. 

"I-I'm not!" He defended, not wanting to appear cowardly in front of the woman. Lavi chuckled at the slight wavering of his voice. 

"No worries, Mr. Prince," she said, pushing him aside. "Your knight in shining armor is here." She sent him a grin before moving to the spider and casually picking it up. "I am sure that Luffy will love this," she said. "I will be right back," she told the blond man before exiting the kitchen.  

Sanji breathed out a sigh of relief as soon as the arachnid was removed from the room. He frowned as he turned down the fire on the stove and grabbed the materials to properly disinfect the area where that 'disgusting creature' had been.  

'Your knight in shining armor is here,' he heard Lavi's voice ring in his head as he finished wiping the counter. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.  

He couldn't help but feel disappointed in himself. This wasn't how it was supposed to be, he thought. He was supposed to the be the one protecting her from silly, irrational fears; it was supposed to be the other way around. He wasn't supposed to be the damsel in distress. _He_ was supposed to be the white knight— _her_ white knight.  

He resumed cooking, inhaling from his cigarette as he let his mind wander. He couldn't call himself a gentleman if he kept letting her get her hands dirty like that, he told himself. After all, it wasn't a lady's job to fight a man's battles, no matter how minor it was or how much she insisted that she wasn't a lady. 

Sanji was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of his captain's excited shouts. The blond's face contorted into one of disgust. He couldn't even begin to fathom how someone could be excited about a spider of all things. Though, if anyone were to get excited over something like that, it would be someone like Luffy.  

He glanced over at the kitchen door when he heard it open and felt his disheartened mood lift the moment that he caught sight of the huge grin on Lavi's face. 

"This brings back memories," she said as she walked to the sink and washed her hands. "When we were kids, Luffy used to run up to me all the time with all different kinds of bugs and just shove them in my face because he thought that they were cool." Lavi dried her hands before going back to the bowl of batter that she had been holding before. "And I remember this one time," she paused to chuckle. "Ace thought that it would be funny to mess with me by throwing a nest of baby spiders on my hair." Sanji felt a shiver run up his spine at the thought. "So between those two idiots," she continued, "it was just not practical for me to be afraid of any bugs."   

Sanji’s disgusted frown lifted up into a soft smile at the sight of how genuinely happy Lavi seemed as she recounted her memories. 

He realized then that with someone like her around, it didn't matter what kind of situation he found himself in; because all he needed was the sight of her smile to make things a little better—the sight of her wide-stretching grin, which was, by the day, looking less like his captain’s and more like her own.  

***

Sanji stared up at the glowing moon with tired eyes. He sighed, breathing out some smoke in the process. He stood, leaning against the railing on the side of the Thousand Sunny, with his hands in his pockets and his cigarette between his teeth. The air was cool, the skies were clear, the sea was calm; everything about that night was ordinary—except for the fact that Lavi wasn't out there. 

Sanji had considered the possibility that he would not find her outside that night. Not after what had happened the previous night. But he had still hoped that she would be there. It wasn't like she had avoided him during the day.  

Sanji heard the sound of a door being gently shut and looked over to see Lavi exiting the clinic. Her focus remained on a bag filled with miniature chocolate fudge cookies as she walked down the stairs and onto the deck beside Sanji. 

"Hello, Mr. Sanji," she greeted him as she grabbed a cookie and shoved it into her mouth. She held out the bag to him, wordlessly offering him one. He smiled at the sight of her munching on the snack. 

"Have you ever considered that all of the sugar that you consume could play into your inability to sleep?” Sanji questioned. Lavi pulled back her bag of sweets upon hearing the comment. She swallowed the mouthful of cookies that she had been chewing on.  

"You and I both know that that is not the issue here,” Lavi told him before grabbing another cookie and placing it in her mouth, a tense silence settling over the pair. 

"About last night..." Sanji said after a long moment.  

"Do not," Lavi said in a harsh tone after. "You do not need to worry about that. It does not matter." 

"How am I not supposed to worry?" He asked her. She shook her head at him.  

"You should focus that concern on Luffy," she said. Sanji furrowed his brow at the comment.   

"Lavi-chan..."  

"Stop it, Mr. Sanji," she said in a louder tone. He frowned at that. It seemed so unlike her.  

Sanji exhaled some smoke as he mulled over what his next course of action should be. He wasn't one to refuse the request of a woman, after all.  

As a silence settled over the pair, Lavi found herself growing more and more tense. Should she actually tell him about her nightmare, she wondered.  

'No,' she thought. 'What the hell am I thinking? I have never told anyone else about this, so why should I change that now? He is just another person, another one of my crewmates. There is nothing special about him; there is nothing that makes him different from anyone else.' Lavi internally sighed. 'No. That is not fully true.' Lavi's lips, which had been pressed tightly together, turned down into a frown. 'Aside from Miss Makino and Sabo, he is the only person who has shown any concern for me about this kind of stuff.' Lavi's shoulders slumped down at the thought. She was just someone that people didn't worry about, she told herself. She was someone that people didn't need to worry about. She was strong after all, right? 

Lavi scowled as she finished eating her cookies. She neatly folded up the paper bag that they had been in and shoved it into the pocket of the hoodie that she was wearing, which she had taken from her brother. She wished that she had brought more sweets outside with her and the thought made her consider just going back inside; but even though the man that stood beside her was making her feel tense with his words, there was still something about his presence that she found oddly comforting and it made her not want to leave his side. 

"I wonder what's going on in that head of yours," Sanji said aloud as he released the smoke that was in his lungs. Lavi's breath hitched for a second, startled by the sudden break in the silence. It took her a moment to process his words; once she had, though, she decided to ignore his comment. 

Sanji frowned at Lavi's lack of response. He watched her as she stared out at the sea with her hands gently placed on the railing on the side of the Sunny. The moonlight illuminated her face well enough that he could see the faint trace of melancholy that lay on it, and the sight made his heart ache. 

She should be smiling, he thought. That's what fit her; that's what looked right—because she was sugar; she was caramel and honey. She was saccharine smiles that lit up his day. Not bitter frowns and sour words. Those things looked wrong on her and, god, what he wouldn't give to make that go away. He wanted to see the brightness in her eyes again. He wanted to see her smile; to make her smile. He wanted to— 

"You know, Lavi-chan," Sanji started. "You're always so willing to help others. So why is that you're unwilling to accept any help?" 

"A lady must always offer her help when it is asked for or appears to be needed," Lavi said without missing a beat. "But that does not mean that she must accept any and all help offered to her." 

Sanji furrowed his brow. Her words reminded him of what she had stated some nights ago about what a lady 'should' do. And just like then, her facial expression did not change; she showed no sign of having realized what she had said.  

Sanji pulled out a second cigarette, his first one having burned out. As he thought back to that night, he found his curiosity being piqued again; but, unlike that night, he decided to point out what she had said. 

"But I thought you weren't a lady," he remarked. 

Lavi's eyes widened as his comment made her realize what she had said to him. She cursed under her breath. No matter how hard she tried, it seemed, she just couldn't get those stupid rules that Miss Makino had taught her when she was younger out of her head. They were burned into her mind like a damn scar and she hated it.  

Sanji noticed the growing frown on her face, and it made him wish that he had just kept his mouth shut. He had wanted to make her smile, but he had managed to accomplish just the opposite. He stretched his arm forward, reaching toward her and brushed some of her hair behind her ear. He watched her blink rapidly for a few seconds as his touch broke her out of her thoughts. She turned her head to look at him with a perplexed look on his face. 

"You really do worry me a lot," Sanji told her. Lavi looked away from him, pausing shortly before replying. 

"I told you that you do not need to worry," she said. 

"I don't need to," he agreed. "But I want to."  

Lavi felt her heart flutter slightly at his words. He was making it really hard, she thought, for her to not give in to his wishes. 

"Because you're the kind of person that needs to be worried about," Sanji continued. The words caused Lavi to meet his gaze again. The sincerity being expressed in his eyes at that moment made her want to tell him everything.  

"I...," said Lavi, but she paused. She bit her lip nervously, but she didn't pull her eyes away from his. 

"Let me worry," he told her in a soft, reassuring voice. "Let me help you."  

Lavi examined his face looking for a sign, any sign, that he was being dishonest—for a sign that would reassure her that she shouldn't listen to him, that she shouldn't let this man break down the walls that she had kept up for the past decade. But all she saw on his face was compassion and patience; all she saw were reasons to trust him. 

"Okay," she said quietly. Sanji sighed in relief and gave her a slight nod to let her know that he had heard her and waited for her to continue.  

"It is just the nightmare that I have been having," she said softly, moving her eyes to the side so as to not stare into his. "I started having it after Ace...after he died. I had it every time I tried to sleep until I finally left home and out to sea. I felt free for the first time in...I don't know. But then when I joined you guys it started up again. I think maybe it is because I am with Luffy again. I—I am so..." Lavi trailed off.  

She looked back up at Sanji and held his gaze. He saw that same look in her eyes that he had seen the night before when she had woken up so abruptly—that same look of distress. He lifted his right hand as he stepped closer to her and moved some of her hair behind her ear. 

"I am so scared," Lavi told him in a shaky voice. Sanji watched her blink back her tears, willing her eyes to dry up. "I am so scared of losing Luffy. In my dream...I can never find Ace even though I know that I need to because something is not right; and Sabo is there, but..."  

Sanji wasn't sure who Sabo was, but he knew that it was not the moment to question it.  

"But then he disappears," Lavi continued, "after telling me that Ace would take care of me if he was not there to, but...but...but Ace is not there. Ace is not here."  

Sanji noticed that her tone was starting to grow more frantic and her eyes started to show an increasing panic filling her. 

"And then Luffy. I find him and...and he is all that I have left and I have to help him; he is always drowning and I try to reach out for him. I try so, so hard, but every single time—every single goddamned time I just cannot. I..." Lavi's voice broke as she continued to speak. "I always fail to help him—to help any of my brothers. I just—I am so..so weak." Lavi stopped herself. She dropped her gaze as she took a deep breath and tried to calm herself so she would not start crying. She would not break now, she told herself. 

She felt two warm hands press against either side of her face and lift it back up; she found her dark eyes meeting Sanji's visible, bright, blue one. 

"You are so strong," he said. Lavi furrowed her brow at his statement. She shook her head as much as she could within his grasp. She wrapped her hands around his wrists, gripping onto them loosely. 

"No," she whispered out. "I am weak if I cannot protect those that I care about." 

"Can't you?" He asked. Lavi gave him a questioning look, not understanding the question. "All I see," he continued, "is a woman who always puts others before herself; a woman who jumps into a situation without hesitation to protect others; a woman who gives her all in everything that she does for others." He saw Lavi's eyes start to water again. "I see a woman who is able to save her drowning brother and manages to easily fight off giant creatures that idiots like myself don't see coming." A small smile crossed her lips. "I see a woman who is strong enough to protect those around her and strong enough to face her own inner battles, but..."  

Lavi sniffled as he continued. She felt like something was constricting around her heart, but it was a warm something. It was a something that felt nice.  

Why was he doing this, she thought. Why was he going out of his way? Why did he always go out of his way like this for her? Why? 

"You don't have to fight those battles on your own," Sanji said. Lavi let go of his wrists and bit down on her lower lip as she tried to reign in her feelings like she was so used to doing, but it was proving a lot harder than usual. His words, his presence, his everything made it hard for her to not want to just let everything go already. He would take care of her after all, right? He had pretty much said that he would before. And she could trust him, right? She could trust his word, right? 

"It's okay to cry, Lavi," Sanji told her softly, taking a more personal tone. He let go of her face, allowing Lavi to shake her head fiercely.   

"I have to be strong," she said, her voice cracking. "I have to be strong for Luffy." Sanji felt a painful tug at his heart. How long had she been in this much pain, he wondered. How long had she been telling herself the same phrase that she had just told him?  

Lavi balled up her hands into fists. He made her want to let go, but—she needed to be strong. She had managed to do it all these years. She had managed to prevent herself from breaking like she had seen everyone else around her do; so why should she allow herself to do so now? Why should she permit it just because someone was finally offering to give her refuge? Just because this man in front of her was offering to be her crutch. 

"Crying doesn't make you weak," said Sanji.  

As those words reached her ears, Lavi realized that she couldn't hold it in anymore. That was it. That was her breaking point. The tears that she had been holding back for years upon years started to stream down her face. Sanji immediately moved forward and pulled her into an embrace, glad that the fire on his cigarette had burned out long ago. She buried her face into his chest, which muffled her sobs, and he felt her hands wrap around his torso, gripping tightly onto the back of his pajama shirt. 

Sanji continued to hold onto her tightly as an indefinite amount of time passed and her tears soaked into his shirt. He held onto her like he was afraid that she would disappear if he so much as loosened his grip. And he didn't let go until her cries had completely died down.  

When Lavi's tears had fully abated, she aggressively pulled herself back and took several steps away from him. She apologized profusely with a shaky voice as she wiped away her tears. Her eyes were now red and puffy and her whole body trembled. 

"Don't apologize for that," he told her, closing the gap that she had placed between them. Sanji brushed back with his hand some of the hair that had fallen in front of her face. "I'm more than happy that you've finally allowed me the honor of taking care of you."  

Lavi couldn't help the blush that settled across her cheeks at what he had said. She hadn't been taken care of like this since she had had Sabo. However—she couldn't place her finger on it, but there was definitely something inherently different in the comfort and care that Sanji was offering her from the one that Sabo had given her. 

Lavi didn't respond to Sanji's statement. She only sniffled while breathing at an unsteady rate.  

"Would my dazzling Lavi-chwan like some hot cocoa? With marshmallows, of course," he offered, lightening the mood with his tone. Lavi nodded at the suggestion, but when she went to walk, she found it difficult with her trembling legs. Upon seeing this, Sanji squatted down with his back facing her.   

"Get on," he told her in a gentle tone.  

It took her longer than it normally would have, but she was able to get on his back and wrap her arms around his neck. He placed his hands under her thighs, which would have made him break out into a nosebleed had the atmosphere not been so melancholic. 

A slight smile settled on Lavi's face as she buried her nose into the back of his neck. She inhaled his familiar scent of tobacco and spices and found the bitter scent for the first time to be oddly pleasant. The way that the scent engulfed her senses filled her with a feeling of comfort that she wished would never leave. 

When they entered the kitchen, he set her down on a chair at the table and went to make the hot cocoa that he had promised her.  

Lavi watched Sanji as he moved back and forth in the kitchen with a small smile on her lips. She felt more relieved than she had in a very long time and she wondered if she would ever be able to find a way to properly express the amount of gratitude that she now felt for the man and his actions. 

"How much sugar would you like?" Sanji asked her, breaking her out of her thoughts. He turned around and looked at her expectantly. She gave him a small, but toothy grin. 

"A lot," she answered.  

Sanji's heart swelled up at the sight of her happy face and the fact that he was the cause of it. He chuckled quietly at her answer and pulled out a tray so that he could easily bring the two mugs of hot cocoa, the jar of sugar, and the marshmallows over to the table where she sat. 

When he placed the tray in front of her, she reached out for her mug slowly with her still slightly shaking hands. As she pulled the mug toward her, Sanji moved the sugar and marshmallows closer to her to save her the trouble of doing it herself. Lavi gave him an appreciative look after he had done so. She grabbed hold of the spoon that he then handed to her and proceeded to pour four spoonfuls of sugar into her mug before stirring it. Then she placed enough marshmallows over the hot cocoa to almost completely hide it from view.  

Sanji stared at her in amusement the whole time because everything that she did—as she grabbed the spoonfuls of sugar and poured it, and as she picked up each marshmallow—she did with a look of excitement as if she had never before had hot cocoa with marshmallows, which Sanji knew for a fact was not the case. As she sipped on her drink, the delighted smile on her face made it impossible for the blond not to smile himself. Sanji's eyes widened as Lavi turned her head to face him. He turned his face away from her as a blush rose on his cheeks after having unexpectedly been caught admiring her. He quickly lifted his mug to his lips and sipped on his drink, hoping that the mug would cover his blush. Lavi tilted her head, confused as to why he had turned away from her so quickly. When Sanji caught the sight with the corner of his eye, he couldn't help, but think about how cute she looked. 

"Mr. Sanji," she started, causing him to turn back to face her. 

"Yes, my dear?" He said with a gentle smile. 

"I just wanted to say, thank you—for everything that you have done for me." She looked down at the empty mug in her hands that sat on her lap."I have not felt this..." Lavi hesitated as she considered what word would be best for her to use. "...secure," she said, "since I had Sabo worrying about every little thing for me—from any cut or scrape that I got to anything that may have hurt my feelings." A nostalgic look settled on her face as she thought about all those times. "I miss him so much. He was such a good big brother." 

Sanji raised his eyebrows at her last words.  

"Brother?" He questioned. Lavi's eyes flickered up to look at his.  

"I am sorry. I should have figured that you did not know," she told him. "Luffy has probably had no reason to mention it." She paused. "When Luffy and I were young, we were somewhat separated. He was brought to live with a group of bandits and I remained living in the town. We still managed to see each other and spend time together, though. Ace was also living with the bandits. That is how he and Luffy met. And then I met him through Luffy. Sabo was someone who had been friends with Ace for a while so it became inevitable that he and Luffy, and then eventually I, would become friends with him too. But as we all grew closer, our bonds strengthened into something more than friendship. We were family. So, with some sake, we became siblings." Lavi grinned "The memories I made with them are some of the best memories of my life. But then..." Her grin fell. "An incident happened with a celestial dragon and Sabo was killed." She frowned. "He was only 10. And I was only 6."  

Sanji's heart fell and he mirrored her frown at the realization that she hadn't lost one, but two brothers. He didn't know what to say to comfort her; he didn't know if there was anything that he could say that would accomplish that, but he tried nevertheless. 

"I'm sorry,” Sanji said, reaching out and brushing her hair behind her ear like he had before. “It's not fair that you had to go through that.” She gave him a sad smile. 

“It is not fair that Luffy had to go through that,” she responded and looked back down at the mug on her lap.  

Sanji furrowed his brow as he observed the sadness evident in her features. He thought back to what she had said before—that she needed to be strong for Luffy. Was that how she had been coping? By ignoring the fact that she had lost two brothers and focusing instead on the fact that Luffy had? The thought didn't sit well with him; it didn't sit well with him at all.  

Lavi turned to face him again and gave him a happier smile.  

"I should probably be getting to bed," she told him, getting up from her chair. Her body had stopped trembling a while back thanks to the warmth and comfort provided by the hot cocoa that Sanji had made her. 

"Are you sure?" Sanji asked, standing up after her. Lavi gave him a nod and a larger smile. 

"I will be fine, Mr. Sanji. I will be fine now." Sanji smiled at that. 

"Alright," he said before hesitantly pulling her into a hug. "Then goodnight." He pulled her out of his embrace and placed his hands on either side of her face. "And may you have nothing but sweet dreams~," he finished, starting to fall back into the sing-song tone that he usually held around women. He moved his head forward and gave her a short kiss on her forehead before letting go of her face and stepping back. Lavi blushed at the action.  

"Goodnight to you too, Mr. Sanji," she told him and then stepped forward to stand next to him. She tiptoed as much as she could and placed a kiss on his cheek. She smiled shyly, her face redder than before, as she pulled away.  

Sanji's face started to redden as well as he watched her step away from him and then walk toward the door. He kept his eyes on her form right until she closed the kitchen door behind her. Sanji brought his right thumb up to his mouth and bit down on the tip of it lightly in anxiousness. He really couldn't understand the nature of their relationship anymore. It had gone from two people helping each other in the kitchen and sharing meals to...to what, exactly, he wondered.  

He pulled out a new cigarette, placed it between his lips, and lit it. He inhaled and then exhaled the smoke that had gathered in his lungs. 

The relationship that he shared with Lavi, he mused, was no way near the kind of relationship that he shared with either Nami or Robin. He hadn't known Lavi for anywhere near as long as he had known the other two women, but the amount of intimate moments that he had shared with her so far already outnumbered the amount that he had shared with either of the other two women on board. There was no way, he knew, that he could classify his relationship with Lavi as anyway similar to his relationship with the other two women. But knowing that didn't help him figure out what exactly the nature of his relationship with her was. 

Sanji sighed as he rubbed his tired eyes with his hand. Maybe, he thought, some sleep would do his currently muddled mind some good. 

Not too far from him, Lavi sat cross-legged on the clinic's bed, fiddling with her hat, which had been sitting on it. She found herself in a dilemma not all too dissimilar from Sanji's.  

Sanji was different from all of the other men that had been in her life—she could say that much—so it wasn't surprising that, by extension, her relationship with him would also be different from her relationship with all of the other men in her life. But that difference left her very confused. Though she was growing to care for him a lot like she had grown to care for her brothers, her relationship with Sanji greatly differed from the type of relationship that she had shared with both Ace and Sabo. Which made sense, she thought, because she didn't, couldn't look at Sanji the same way that she looked at her brothers. He wasn't family. He was...was what exactly, she wondered. 

She sighed and rubbed her tired eyes with her hand. Maybe, she thought, some sleep would do her currently muddled mind some good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recently rewatched Film Z and I came to the realization that because of when this movie takes place, Lavi would be on the crew at the time. Even though the movies never fit into the One Piece timeline properly...because of the filler arc that served as a "prequel" to the movie, Film Z can be placed somewhere in between Fishman Island and Punk Hazard. That being said, I've decided to write Film Z before writing Punk Hazard. It'll be fun (come on, Sanji interacting with a 6-year-old Lavi, everyone) and it gives me more time to develop Lavi and her relationship with Sanji before all the crazy shit happens.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I mentioned in the previous chapter, I will be doing Film Z. This came out a lot longer than expected. So it's looking like Film Z might end up being three whole chapters...I hope it's good enough that ya'll don't mind.

"Come on! Come on, baby!" joyfully sang Brook as he strummed his guitar. "Nyaa! Nyaa! Nya-nya-nya-nya-nyaa; I'm always a lively skeleton!"

Luffy, with two large chunks of meat on either hand, and Franky, with a fluffy, pink afro, stood by Brook dancing along to his music. Lavi giggled from her seat beside Chopper as she watched the antics of her crewmates; her eyes followed their so-called dance moves as she happily sipped a strawberry milkshake.

"It's good drinking while watching the cherry blossoms," Zoro said. "Right, Chopper? Lavi?"

"Yes! I love drinking milk while watching the leaves as well!" Replied the reindeer in his cow suit. Lavi nodded and pulled away from her straw.

"Milkshakes taste sweeter when the weather is warm and beautiful," she said with a grin. "Not that you would know, Mr. Kusamochi," she added as she eyed the liquor in Zoro's hand and scrunched up her nose. Zoro's eye twitched.

"I told you not to call me that!" He growled at her. Lavi stuck her tongue out at him in response, but her playful demeanor fell when she heard Chopper make a sound of disgust. She looked over at the reindeer with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

"It stinks! I smell poison!" Chopper cried out with wide eyes. Zoro stood abruptly at Chopper's words as the small doctor fell forward only to be caught by Lavi with her free hand before he hit the floor. His bottle of milk, however, still fell onto the ground. "It's a deadly poison!" He shouted as he steadied himself back on his feet. Luffy, Brook, and Franky all quickly ran over to stand beside the green-haired swordsman.

"What is it, Chopper?" Franky asked.

"He was poisoned?" Zoro questioned.

"Chopper!" Luffy exclaimed.

"He took poison," said Brook. "I remembered!"

"Do you have any idea of what it is?" Franky asked.

"Listen to this song: 'The Poison I Took'."

"It's a song?!"

"Are you sure what you smelled was poison?" Lavi asked Chopper. Chopper nodded.

"There's no doubt about it," he said as he wrinkled his nose.

"Now that I think about it," started Zoro after chugging down some more of his drink, "the taste of this drink is..." He paused and put his hand underneath his chin as he pondered about it. "Wait, or was it always like this?"

"Usopp!" Shouted Luffy, turning the attention of the others toward him. "So it's your fault! Look! Chopper was caught by the poisonous milk!"

"It's your fault for being there!" Argued Usopp. "The poison is for killing worms! If it dies, it means you are worms!"

"Well, then we can relax. After all, we are not insects," said Zoro as he sat back down on the deck and took another long swig from his bottle of liquor.

Lavi smiled, chuckling at the turn events. She turned her focus back to her smoothie, drinking what was left of the drink, having found it to taste not much different than it had before.

"So, are you okay?" Chopper asked.

"The taste is a bit different, but it's also pretty good," Zoro said.

"It's a little bitter," Chopper said after also drinking from his own drink. "Is that because I'm becoming an adult?"

"Let me try it," Luffy said as he grabbed onto the reindeer's bottle of milk. He took a quick sip and immediately spit it back out. "That's horrible."

Lavi let herself fully relax, leaning against the mast of the ship, as she found herself being entertained by the shenanigans of her brother, Franky, and Brook.

It was normal for her to find herself being calmer when in the presence of her brother, but she had never, at least in a long time, found herself able to be as tranquil as she was in that moment. And maybe, she thought, the warm weather and the sight of the falling cherry blossoms helped to cause this feeling, but she knew that that was not the main cause of it—that cause being the fact that over the last several nights she had found herself experiencing less frequent and less intense nightmares then she had since she had arrived on board the Thousand Sunny. And she knew that she had a certain blond chef to thank for that for making her finally accept and unleash the feelings that she had been confining within her.

"Hey, be quiet! Dammit!" The voice of the man that she had just been thinking about broke the woman out of her thoughts. "Nami, delivery of the special orange juice!"

"Thank you, Sanji," Nami responded. "I'd also love some dessert!"

"Nami-san! Yes, with pleasure!" Lavi tilted her head to look over at his direction and puffed out her cheeks.

'No fair,' she thought. 'I want to be brought dessert too.'

"Hey, Sanji!" Shouted Luffy as he looked up toward the cook.

"Eh?" Said the cook, looking over.

"I also want dessert! And meat!"

"I want some candy sweets!" Added Brook.

"Me too!" Said Chopper.

"I want cola!" Requested Franky.

"My drink is almost empty," said Zoro.

"I want dessert too!" Shouted Usopp.

"Shut up, bastards!" Responded Sanji. "When you ask for something from someone, it has to be politely, you idiots! I was born only for the ladies!"

With that last comment, Sanji found his eyes landing on Lavi whose eyes were set straight ahead of her with puffed up cheeks. Having learned by then that it was a cute habit of hers that she did when she was bothered in someway, he immediately wondered what could possibly be upsetting her.

He quickly moved to the lower level of the ship and toward the woman with his tray, which still held one more drink, in his hand.

"Lavi-chwan~" he sang as he genuflected before her, offering her the drink. "A brand new flavor made especially for you; a banana-caramel-blueberry smoothie." Lavi's cheeks deflated and her face brightened at the sight of the sweet beverage.

"Thank you, Mr. Sanji! It sounds like it is going to be amazing!" She said in delight. The cook couldn't hide his smile at the sight of pure joy on her face.

"That's not fair!" Whined Luffy.

"Don't you dare try to ask her for some!" Sanji growled at his captain, knowing that she would give him the drink without hesitation. The blond paused as he looked up at the substance that had started to suddenly fall from the sky.

Lavi gagged as she took a sip of her new drink and found it to be somewhat bitter.

"Hey, Usopp! Your poison is here again!" Luffy shouted.

"I'm not using it anymore!" Responded the sharpshooter.

"What is this?" Robin questioned.

"It's snow!" Chopper shouted cheerfully.

"No. It's not melting to be snow," Zoro pointed out.

"What is it?" Asked Nami, standing up from her seat. "This is volcanic ashes!"

"Volcanic ashes?!" Everyone else, aside from Robin, shouted simultaneously. Lavi pouted at the statement; if that was true, which she knew it must be because the information came from Nami, then it meant that her drink was now ruined.

The crew waited for the ashes to stop falling and found themselves grateful once it had.

"That's disgusting" Chopper whined as he rubbed his face. He was sat against the mast alongside Robin and Lavi. The latter found herself gratefully accepting another smoothie—the same as before minus the ashes that had been falling—from Sanji.

"The ashes entered your fur, did it not?" Robin inquired. "Let's take a bath together after."

"Bath?!" Shouted Sanji.

"Together?!" Followed Brook. Lavi missed the rest of their perverted behavior, choosing to fully focus on her delicious drink instead. The banana, she noticed, really helped to bring out the caramel flavor. And the amount of sweetness in the beverage was just perfect; not that she had expected any less from the cook, of course.

Lavi didn't start paying attention to the others again until she finally finished her drink. A pout settled on her lips as she wished that she had more. She would eventually have to get the recipe for the smoothie from Sanji, she decided.

"Hey, guys! Our route has been decided!" She heard Luffy shout. "Get ready!"

Lavi stood up with a grin on her face. She hoped that this meant that they would find an island soon; though she had gotten to attack that large crab that they had encountered on the last island that they had landed on, it wasn't a fight and she had been itching for one for a while.

"We don't know what might happen so prepare yourselves," she heard Nami say. "We can't do anything. After all, he is our captain." She paused. "But we don't want to get involved with volcanoes or anything that can threaten our lives!"

"Guys!" Luffy shouted, moving onto the deck from the figurehead of the ship. "There's someone in the water!" The crew jumped into action at the words.

"Castaway located," Chopper said as he slid down the ladder into the docking area of the ship. Being the medic, he was the first to head down there. "Prepare to rescue him immediately." He was immediately followed by Luffy and then Lavi.

They opened the door of the docking area, allowing them clear access to the castaway.

"He's being dragged!" Chopper pointed out.

"Leave it to me," Luffy told him and then stretched out his arm toward the man. Immediately as Luffy touched him though, the rubber man went weak and fell back, only to be caught by Chopper. Lavi looked at her brother with fierce concern.

"Luffy, what's wrong?" Chopper asked.

"I'm running out of strength," Luffy explained. Lavi furrowed his brow at the statement.

"Let me handle this then," she said, jumping into the water before either of the devil fruit users could protest.

Luffy pulled his arm back as he watched his sister easily swim toward the unconscious man. She gave the contraption on the man's arm a curious look before grabbing onto it and using it to pull him onto the docking area where Luffy and Chopper were standing. Chopper quickly moved over to the man, pulling out a stethoscope to check his heart rate. Luffy and Lavi watched the reindeer expectantly as most of their remaining crewmates descended down to where they were.

"So, is he alive?" Usopp asked Chopper.

"His heart rate and breathing are weak, but he's only passed out. He's not in danger," he answered happily.

"Really?"

"I hope we didn't get someone problematic again," said Nami. "A big guy all bruised! And this business in his right arm..."

Lavi looked at the arm with pursed lips as she watched Robin reach out to touch it. It had definitely felt weighty to her when she had pulled him out of the water so it was certainly not something that seemed to be convenient to carry around—especially not if you could end up in the water; it was practically an anchor in that situation.

She saw Robin pull her hand back from the arm.

"That's really made of seastone," Robin said.

"I get it!" Said Chopper. "That's why Luffy lost his strength when he touched it."

"A powerful weapon made of seastone..." Nami said.

"Awesome!" Cheered Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp with stars in their eyes.

Lavi frowned at the weapon though. Were their situation a bit different then she probably would have joined them in their admiration, but she knew that Nami was right to be concerned. Almost half of their crew were devil fruit users after all so if this man proved to be an enemy, this could quickly go downhill.

Sanji caught the concerned look on Lavi's face as her eyes followed her brother. He had a bad feeling about this, he thought, as he pulled out a cigarette and placed it between his lips.

"Seastone has the same energy as the ocean," the blond pointed out, flicking open his lighter to light his cigarette. He blew out some smoke and placed the lighter back into his pocket before continuing. "A weapon made from that material," he said, pausing to remove the cigarette from his mouth, "means that it was made to end devil fruit users."

"He might be an enemy," Lavi said, pulling out a wrapped piece of toffee from her pocket and then unwrapping it.

"Lavi's right," agreed Nami. "And we can't lower our guard in the New World."

"If you're worried, throw him overboard," suggested Zoro.

"I say we punch him awake and ask him if he is an enemy," said Lavi before popping the piece of toffee in her mouth.

"Idiots! We can't do that!" Shouted Usopp.

"I don't want to!" Chopper stated.

"He might kill you as soon as he recovers," Zoro told him, causing his eyes to widen.

"Even so, I'm a doctor! I can't abandon him!"

"What's the problem?" Asked Luffy. "Treat him, Chopper. If he's the enemy, I'll finish him off. Is that alright?" Lavi smiled at her brother's logic.

"You make a good point," she said.

"Yes! Thank you, Luffy!" Chopper cheered.

"Well, as a sea warrior, of course it's alright," Usopp said. Luffy laughed at his crewmates' response.

"Damn, they are so carefree," said Nami, sighing. "I really have a bad feeling about this."

"It's exciting, right?" Cheered Luffy.

"There's no need for that kind of excitement!"

***

Lavi stood up from her seat by the kitchen of the ship as soon as she sensed that the strange man had woken up. She peeked in through the window on the door that led to the clinic from the dining area, only to be pushed aside by Usopp, who was then pushed aside by Brook. Lavi's eyes twitched as she looked at the pair. Growling, she easily pushed them both aside, to take back her spot in front of the window and peered inside trying to gauge the nature of the interaction between the man and her brother.

Though Lavi could not tell what they were saying, she watched her brother grin and laugh as they talked. It seemed like this man had no bad intentions toward Luffy, which caused Lavi to relax. She turned away from the window and was about to walk away, when she saw the stranger suddenly stand up from the corner of her eye. Lavi tensed and quickly turned her head back just in time to see Luffy get punched toward her.

Usopp, Brook, and Nami who had been standing with her by the door, hastily jumped away as it broke. Lavi remained in place, though, and gritted her teeth in anger. She grabbed onto Luffy as he flew toward her, preventing him from falling any further back.

"Luffy!" Chopper shouted as Lavi let go of her brother, allowing him to stand on his own. Lavi watched the man move closer to them as Zoro and Sanji entered the room.

"Nami-san! Lavi-chan! Go outside!" Said Sanji.

"Take care of it, please," said Nami as she ran toward the exit. Lavi smirked and grabbed the baseball bat that was strapped to her back.

"Do you not know me by now?" She asked. She knew that he did. "There is no way that I am missing out on a fight." And she knew that he had expected that from her. But she also knew that Sanji was Sanji and that he wouldn't be Sanji if he didn't try to get her out if a potentially dangerous situation.

"How painful," said Luffy, removing his hand from his face. "A punch from a seastone weapon really hurts."

"Straw hat," began the man who was now practically right in front of Luffy and Lavi. "Why are you a pirate?" Luffy grinned before answering.

"To become the pirate king!" He said.

There was a brief moment before the man's arm was pulled back and then it was headed straight toward Luffy again. Luffy grabbed his sister without hesitation and pulled them both out of the way of the attack. While the two regained their footing, Sanji and Zoro rushed toward the man and attacked him, jumping back after neither seemed to cause any damage.

Lavi ran toward the man, aiming her haki-coated bat at his abdomen. He lifted his right leg and blocked it and then aimed a punch at her with his left hand. Lavi moved her bat toward her right in the path of the punch in time to block it. They both pulled their other arm back, Lavi's coated in haki, and thrust them forward, causing their fists to meet.

The man's eyes widened underneath his shades. He felt the metal limb on his right side vibrate from the force of her punch as a slight crack appeared at its base. He hadn't expect her to be so strong. He moved his left fist toward her and it hit her side causing her to fly back a bit. The man's eyes briefly glanced toward her arms and the bat in her right hand which were all covered in armament haki. He had been around long enough to recognize strong haki when he saw it. And, though she hadn't moved in time to avoid his punch, he could tell from how it felt when his hit landed that her side had been coated in haki as well.

His focus quickly switched to Luffy as he blocked the pirate's punches and then kicking him back. Sanji landed a kick on him from behind and the man turned around only to be attacked by Zoro from the other side. He turned just in time to block Zoro's swords with his metal arm and then he pushed the swordsman back. Luffy ran at him from the front and was punched back while Lavi ran at him from the side, her attack missing when he moved away.

"Damn!" Cursed Luffy.

"Brook, let's fight too!" Said Usopp.

"Yes," Brook agreed and the two of them ran forward, only to fall backward when the ship suddenly moved.

"They're here," said the purple-haired man, but the four that had been fighting him were not deterred by his words. They continued to attack the man consecutively one after the other.

"Things look dangerous out there as well," Sanji said when they had all paused briefly by each other. Lavi cursed under her breath, knowing that some of the others outside might need help.

"You guys better end this quickly," she said before sprinting out of the door and jumping down onto the deck. Leaving her brother was the last thing that she wanted to do, but she wanted—no, her brother would want to make sure that the rest of the crew was okay.

The first thing that Lavi saw as she landed on the grassy deck of the ship was a blue-haired woman pressing her hand against Nami's abdomen which caused the navigator to disappear. Lavi's eyes widened.

"Nami!" She heard Chopper shout, but her gaze remained on the blue-haired woman, eyes narrowing at the stranger that dared to harm her friend. "How dare you do that to Nami?" Chopper said as he changed to heavy point and broke out of the vines that were entrapping him. He ran toward the unknown woman just as Lavi had decided to do the same.

"Modo modo!" Said the woman and a pink glow appeared between her hands. She jumped into the air right before either Chopper's punch or Lavi's bat could hit her causing the former's punch to hit the ground while the latter's weapon was met with air. Before either pirate could react, the blue-haired woman tapped Chopper and then Lavi while she was still in the air and then gracefully landed on the ground behind them. The others watched the reindeer and the dark-haired pirate disappear before their eyes as they had with Nami.

"Chopper!" Shouted Brook, struggling to get out of the vines wrapped around him. "No! Stop...Don't come close..." He said as the blue-haired woman neared her with a glowing hand. "No! No! No!" The woman ignored his protests and touched the skeleton causing him to glow pink while the vines wrapped him up completely.

"Stop!" Robin said, crossing her arms. "Seis Fleur!" Duplicates of Robin's arms appeared from the blue-haired woman's body and wrapped around her. "You are also a devil fruit user, right?" Robin asked. "What have you done with Nami, Chopper, and Lavi?"

Just as she finished asking the question, a miniature version of Nami appeared from underneath the sweater that she had been wearing.

"Robin! Stop using your ability!" She shouted as both a smaller version of Chopper and Lavi appeared from underneath the clothes that they had been wearing. Robin began to retract her arms from the blue-haired woman, but, before she could, the woman already had her glowing pink hands on Robin's, causing Robin's body to become younger. Robin's arms disappeared from the blue-haired woman's body as her devil fruit powers finished taking their effect on Robin.

"I ate the Modo Modo no Mi," explained the woman. "I am a regressive person. My ability can transform anything 12 years in time." Robin looked down at herself as the woman finished explaining. "Now you should be about 18-years-old."

"Ahh," screamed Chopper. "I'm so tiny." Nami looked over at him with concern on her face while Lavi looked down at her now-small hands and formed tiny fists, ignoring the large t-shirt that now hung toward the edge of her shoulders.

"If I touch you two more times, you will regress 12 years two times," the woman continued. "In other words, 24 years, making your existence disappear."

Lavi looked back and glared at the woman, but it was short-lived as a sudden explosion from the dining room made her eyes widen. She watched as Sanji and Zoro were blown in one direction, only to have vines wrap around them; then she turned, looking for Luffy, and froze for a moment when her eyes found him. He was in the purple-haired man's grip, struggling to escape, but, ultimately, failing.

She stood herself up, the t-shirt that she was wearing falling down her form in a dress-like fashion, and ran toward her brother.

"Luffy!" She shouted in a panicked voice. She was halfway to him when vines appeared around her, enclosing her now smaller body, and holding her in place.

The cry had immediately turned Sanji's attention toward Lavi and his eyes had widened as he looked at her much younger face; but the curiosity that had emerged from the sight was pushed aside as he noticed the anxious look on her face as she struggled against the vines.

He frowned as he looked back over at his captain; Sanji was worried about him, of course, but he knew that he couldn't begin to imagine how worried Lavi was at that moment—no, he reasoned, as he looked back over at her; worried wasn't the right word; she was absolutely terrified. He could see that plain as day on her face. And why wouldn't she be, he thought; this was practically her nightmare come true.

"You'll become pirate king with that power alone?" The man asked Luffy. "Don't make me laugh." He tightened his grip on the pirate. "Should I crush you like this? What do you think, Pirate King?"

Lavi struggled frantically against the plants wrapped around her. Tears were pricking at the corners of her eyes, and somehow she had found herself breathing rapidly and yet having difficulty getting air into her lungs same. Her throat felt dry, and she was freezing cold and burning up at the same time. She had found that the harder she struggled, the tighter the grip of the vines would get.

But she didn't care about any of that. She didn't care about the way that the increasing pressure around her body hurt her bones and organs; she only cared about the fact that it restricted her movements more.

"What's your name?" The man asked Luffy.

"Monkey D. Luffy," Luffy managed to say.

"I get it. You're Garps' grandson." The man threw Luffy onto the deck of the ship. The action didn't bring any type of relief to Lavi, but it did make her grateful—for once, she told herself—that that man was related to Luffy and her.

She looked over to where her brother had been thrown, completely ignoring what the man was saying.

"Luffy!" Lavi cried out for him, still restrained.

"Are you okay, Luffy?" Chopper asked from beside him as the pirate captain sat himself up.

"I am the commander of the Neo Marines, Z!" The purple-haired man shouted. Lavi gritted her teeth as he spoke, grinding them together out of rage. "I will obliterate every single pirate! Try to survive if you can, pirates!" With those words, cannons started to fire at the Sunny.

Luffy quickly stood up, running toward the side that was being fired at.

"Damn it!" He cursed. "Wait! Our fight...our fight isn't over yet!"

The Sunny started to be fired at more and more, causing everyone on the ship who had been restrained to increase their struggling against the vines. Lavi scowled, knowing that if they stayed there, not just the Sunny, but everyone on the ship would be severely injured in a best case scenario.

"Luffy!" She shouted. "We need to run!" Luffy gritted his teeth.

"Franky! Let's retreat!" He shouted reluctantly, and quickly ran over to the cyborg, freeing him or his restraints. Franky rushed to the helm of the ship, steering their ship away from the enemies ones, and then using a coup de burst.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief once they were in safe waters. They freed those that were still trapped in the vines and Chopper immediately went around, checking to see if anyone was injured.

"Nami-swan~ Robin-chwan~ Lavi-chwan~," Sanji said as soon as he was freed. "Are all of you alright?"

"Yeah," replied Nami, while Robin gave him a "yes". He looked over to Lavi who had finally been freed to see her rubbing her arms with a pained look on her face.

"I am fine," she said in a soft voice. "Is Luffy okay?"

"He's fine," Chopper said. "But you obviously aren't." Lavi puffed up her cheeks in exasperation. "It looks like those vines were wrapped around you pretty tightly," he said as he observed her arms. "There's definitely going to be some bruising later." He pulled out an ointment from his bag and began rubbing it on her arms. She immediately felt a cooling sensation against her skin, deflating her cheeks as it caused some of her pain to subside.

"I'm really glad that one of the things that survived through everything was some of my medical supplies," he commented as he wrapped bandages around Lavi's limbs.

"Well, I'm not happy that pretty much all of our clothes were burned," said Nami while wrapping the orange sweater that she had been wearing tighter around her younger body. "What are we supposed to do now?"

Lavi blinked blankly at Nami.

"Was it all burned or was some of it left?" She asked the navigator.

"The only things that are left are half-burned so they're pretty much unwearable," she answered. "Why?" She looked over at Lavi with a raised eyebrow. Lavi hummed thoughtfully.

"Since we are smaller, I might be able to salvage some things," she said before getting up and walking off toward the women's quarters. Nami's eyes lit up.

"You're a lifesaver, Lavi!" She exclaimed before rushing after the dark-haired girl, making sure not to trip on her clothing.

Sanji, having already pulled out a cigarette and lit it, blew out some smoke as his eyes roamed over each of his crewmembers. They froze on Luffy for a moment; he knew that the events that had just transpired were definitely taking a toll on his captain. It was obvious to everyone on the ship. The blond sighed as his gaze turned toward where the women's quarters were.

And then there was Lavi, he thought. There was no doubt that what had happened would be taking a toll on her as well, albeit in a different way. He knew that she would blame herself for things that had been out of her control; knew that she would keep those feelings in too. He had finally gotten her to open up not too long ago, but that didn't mean that she was okay; she was far from it. Suppressing her feelings had become second nature to her because she had been doing it for most of her life, and Sanji knew that; he knew that the last thing that she would do was take care of herself and cope properly, which meant that he would have to help her do that. Not that he minded. After all, it was his job as a gentleman to take care of a lady, regardless of how much she denied that she was one.


	10. Chapter 10

Lavi sat unnaturally still on a low stone wall with her legs crossed. The only movements that could be detected from her were the rising and falling of her chest as she breathed, and the shifting of her gaze, which moved back and forth between the sea water that lay before her, and her brother who stood on the other side of the inlet by the Thousand Sunny.

The expression that Luffy held on his face was what kept her eyes wandering back toward him; it was a mixture of seriousness and frustration that was rare for the captain and it made her worry.

"But there is nothing that I can do about it right now," she thought. "Nothing short of catching Z will make what he is feeling go away." She clenched her jaw—a gesture so minuscule that one would have had to have been paying painstakingly close attention to her to have noticed it—as she realized that she was unable to help her brother for the second time that day. "If only I had not agreed to let Z on the ship," she considered in her head. "If only I had stayed fighting him instead of leaving to help the others on the deck; if only I had not attacked Ain; if only I had not allowed myself to become deaged; if only—"

"Lavi-chan?" Asked Sanji, cutting off her train of thought. Lavi jumped at the sudden sound of his voice right next to her, which caused the now-slightly-oversized cap on her head to slip forward and cover her eyes. When had he gotten there, she wondered as she pushed the cap back up.

"Are you alright?" He questioned with a concerned look on his face as he slightly leaned against the stone wall.

Lavi looked up at him for only a few moments before turning her gaze back to her brother. She sighed softly, knowing that a yes-or-no question like that ceased to be one the moment that it left his lips. She had learned that Sanji was much too perceptive to not know the answer already. The man was looking more than just a 'no'.

"I could have lost Luffy," Lavi answered. Her voice cracked slightly and Sanji could hear the fear and distress apparent in her tone; he noted that it appropriately matched the expression that was present on her face. He removed his cigarette from his mouth and blew out some smoke as a frown settled onto his face.

"But you didn't," Sanji pointed out. Lavi solemnly looked down at her small hands.

"But I _could_ have," she responded. He placed his cigarette back in his mouth and let it hang lazily between his lips. He knew that she wasn't going to budge on this. Still, he also knew that he had to do something. It was obvious from her behavior—the way that she had been sitting almost completely still and the clenching of her jaw which had broken that stillness—that none of the thoughts that were going through her head were pleasant. He wanted—no, he _needed_ to change that.

Lavi sighed again and turned around so that her front was facing Sanji, standing up in the process. Even though she was now standing on the stone wall, she still found herself tilting her head back to look up at the man before her. She furrowed her brow.

"I never noticed how tall you are, Mr. Sanji," she told him. Sanji raised an eyebrow at the unexpected comment.

Lavi switched her gaze to the ground briefly as she hopped down off of the wall and felt her bare feet roughly hit against dirt floor. When she moved her head to look back up at Sanji, she found herself tilting her head back even further than she had been before.

"And you have really long legs," she added. Sanji blinked rapidly for a few seconds before a lovestruck grin settled itself onto his face.

"Such blunt words could sound lovely only when coming from you, Lavi-chan," he said in response. The girl did not react to his words. She simply stared at him blankly as he continued to fawn over here—something that she had grown used to over their brief time together.

Lavi looked away from him when she noticed that Nami was walking toward the pair, followed by Robin and Chopper. Sanji immediately noticed the action and followed Lavi's gaze over to the three. The blond's face lit up at the sight.

"Nami-swan~" he said as he pushed himself off of the stone wall. "How is your brilliant plan going?"

"Pretty well," she replied with a smile on her face as she kept her gaze on the money in her hand. "We made quite a bit of money," she added as she reached the stone wall that Lavi was now standing next to.

Nami managed to climb onto the wall and then helped to pull up the shorter reindeer doctor that had been following behind her. Robin decided to stop a short distance from the wall, facing it.

"We have more than enough for us to buy some clothes!" The navigator said happily.

"Clothes?" Questioned Lavi incredulously. "No, no, no. We need to buy sweets!" Chopper gasped at her words and his eyes lit up.

"That's a great idea!" He cheered.

"How am I supposed to go anywhere without any candy to fill my pockets?" Added Lavi. Nami sighed at her words.

"It's not that big of a deal, Lavi," she told the 6-year-old-looking girl. "Stop acting like it's the end of the world."

"It is the end of the world though! I am going to starve!"

"God, you sound like Luffy." Lavi puffed up her cheeks at the ginger's lack of care, which Nami ignored as she continued to count the money in her hand.

"You already look like a child. There's no need to act like one." Lavi's cheeks deflated at the sound of Zoro's voice. She turned to look at the man as he neared the group along with Usopp and Brook, and sent the swordsman a glare. Sanji growled in response to his words. He was about to send an insult toward the man, but Lavi didn't give him the chance to.

"Shut up, Mr. Kusamochi or I will kick your ass!" Lavi shouted with her brow furrowed. Zoro chuckled as he took a seat on the stone wall, a short distance away from Chopper..

"You and what strength?" He asked.

"Just because I am smaller now," she said as she cracked her knuckles. "It does not mean that I am not strong enough to kick your ass." She aimed the side of her right fist at the stone wall beside her with the intent to prove a point; she didn't break eye contact with the swordsman as she heard the hard surface beneath her fist start to crack. She kept her brow furrowed but grit her teeth as she, unlike usual, felt the shock of the impact travel up her arm.

"Ah! Lavi-chwan!" Shouted Sanji in a concerned tone as the girl pulled her hand back toward her. "Are you hurt?" He asked. Lavi shook her head in response as she crossed her arms over her chest, hiding her right hand beneath her left arm; she could feel the scrape that had formed where her skin had struck against the rough wall.

"D-did she just—" Usopp sputtered out.

"I have always been strong; that is why gramps says that I get my strength from him." Lavi said, answering his unfinished question without missing a beat. Sanji raised an eyebrow at the mention of the family member, having come to the conclusion beforehand that there must have been some sort of bad blood between the two. He noticed, though, that she hadn't realized what she had just said—not that that was the first time that that had happened.

Zoro scoffed in response to Lavi's actions.

"Was that supposed to be impressive?" He asked. "That wouldn't even tickle me."

"That was not even a fraction of how strong I am right now! I could break this wall if I wanted to!" Lavi shouted. She knew that she was lying. As much as she had trained her body when she was younger, she knew that her smaller form could only handle so much.

"Prove it," Zoro told her with a smirk, having seen through her lie.

"I do not have to prove anything to you, Mr. Kusamochi," she said, dragging out her nickname for the man. Zoro's eye twitched and he opened his mouth to fire a retort only to be interrupted by Nami.

"Both of you stop it!" She shouted angrily as she glared in their direction, effectively shutting the pair up. "I'm trying to count money here!" She said and then sighed.

Lavi stuck her tongue out at Zoro instead of continuing the argument which caused the man to scowl at her; not wanting to suffer Nami's wrath any further, however, the green-haired man refrained from making an insulting comment in response.

"This is for the doctor," Nami said to herself when she started to flip through the money in her hands again as a comfortable silence settled over the rest of the group. "This is for the load." It lasted for a short time before it was broken by Chopper.

"I'm so sorry," he said suddenly as he stared out toward the sea with a melancholic look on his face. Everyone looked over at the reindeer. "This is all because I wanted to save that Z guy."

"Don't apologize," Zoro told him. Chopper turned toward his left to look at the swordsman.

"A pirate shouldn't regret doing what he believed in," added Sanji. Chopper turned himself further to face the chef. "It's not your fault," he continued. "We all know that."

"Thank you," Chopper said.

"Neo Marines," Usopp wondered aloud. "Who could this Z be?"

"When he found out we were pirates, he attacked us out of nowhere!" Chopper explained. Sanji scoffed.

"The ability of that Binz is problematic," he said, glancing over at Lavi's bandaged arms.

"Next time we are going to settle things straight," said Zoro in a serious tone before smiling. "Besides, we need to avenge the Sunny that showed so much bravery."

"If it wasn't for Sunny's strength," added Nami, "we would all be swimming at sea because of the marine attack."

"We need to find those Neo Marines and make them pay," Robin said.

"Are you serious?!" Questioned Usopp. "I don't want to mess with those dangerous people again. Let's just stay on this island until Sunny is repaired."

"What are you talking about?!" Nami and Lavi simultaneously responded.

"If we don't find them," Nami continued, "my body won't return to normal!"

"Me neither!" Chopper pointed out. "I don't want to stay like this!" Nami stood herself up on the stone wall.

"I can't do anything with this child body!" She said as she looked down at her small arms and hands. "The navigation in the New World will be a lot harder! As navigator," she continued, placing her right hand on her chest, "I need to get back to normal so I can guide Sunny!"

"That's right!" Chopper cried out, jumping in front of Nami.

"I didn't say I want you to stay like this," Usopp said, waving his hands in front of him defensively.

"It would be a problem if I didn't return to normal as well," said Robin. Usopp looked over at her.

"I bet you're happy to be 18 again," he said with a smile. "And having everything in the right place again." His smile quickly disappeared when Robin retaliated against him by making six arms appear out of his back which held him down as two of them pulled his cheeks hard. "I'm sorry," he said immediately before falling over onto the floor.

"Honestly," said Sanji with an annoyed look on his face. "Don't joke around when our ladies are in trouble." He pulled his cigarette out of his mouth and blew out some smoke; calm for a moment before his eyes suddenly widened. "But, wait a second," he thought as his eye strayed over toward Nami and Lavi who weren't too far from one another. "That means I'll be able to closely follow Nami-san's and Lavi-chan's precious days while their bodies mature."

Nami grew flustered when she caught his gaze, knowing that Sanji could only be thinking of something perverted. Lavi tilted her head as her own gaze switched from the flushed ginger toward the blond cook. She was confused as to why Sanji had that strange look on his face and why it made Nami react the way that she did.

"I don't get it," Lavi thought to herself.

"I'll be able to see the moment when the larva turns into a beautiful butterfly?!" Sanji cheered in his head with a large open-mouthed smile on his face.

"Disgusting," Zoro commented, effectively breaking the blond away from his daydream.

"Huh? I'm going to kill you, you mosshead!" Sanji shouted at him. "If you turned back into a kid, I'd give you a lesson!"

"Idiot!" Zoro argued back. "I'd defeat you even as a kid!"

"What did you say? Then I would defeat you even younger; as a 3-year-old, idiot!"

"I would have defeated you when I was a baby!"

"Huh? What did you say?"

Nami placed herself in between the arguing pair, shoving them away from each other.

"There is no time to fight!" She scolded.

"You know," spoke up Brook. "Actually, my age has also decreased."

"Eh?!" Exclaimed mostly everyone as they all turned to look over at the skeleton.

"It looks like," said Usopp.

"It didn't change," continued Sanji.

"Anything," finished Chopper.

"I was also touched by that Ain from the Neo Marines," Brook explained.

"Speaking about it, it's true," Usopp agreed. "But it didn't change anything."

"No! Brook, dead and only bones. I've been a corpse for more than 50 years. But something changed that had never happened before. My age went back 12 years. Look, my hair has the softness of 12 years ago!" Brook cheered.

"Idiot!" Sanji told him as he kicked the musician into the air. "You painted your hair!"

"Oh!" Shouted Brook in surprise after landing back on the ground.

"Then you were happy to rejuvenate?" Usopp questioned.

"You don't need to go back?" Zoro asked.

"Yes, that's right," answered Brook. "No. No!" He quickly interrupted himself. "I also want to return to normal?" He said in an unsure tone.

"How should I know?" Shouted Sanji. Nami sighed at her crewmates' antics.

"For us to go back to normal," she started, "we have to gather information about Z and the Neo Marines."

"So we have to find some marines and beat them up for information!" Lavi said with a look of certainty on her face.

"No!" Nami said. "Why do you always resort to violence?!"

"It is effective," Lavi answered with a nod causing Nami to sigh.

"We can see if any of the locals know anything about Z," the navigator continued.

"We can start with the family that lives right over there," Robin said as she pointed to the house that stood by the docks. Nami nodded in agreement before hopping off of the wall.

"Robin's right," she said.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Lavi asked. "The sooner that we can find Z, the sooner that we can get back to normal." She grabbed onto Nami's hand and turned toward the docks. "Come on," she said and then started to walk forward, pulling the taller girl behind her.

"I'll follow you wherever you please, Lavi-chwan~" Sanji said, immediately following her. Everyone else trailed behind them.

Once they reached the house by the docks, the entire crew all introduced themselves properly to its tenants.

"I was just about to make some tea," said Shumi, the woman who lived there. "Would you guys like some?"

"Yes! Do you have any food to go with it?!" Luffy shouted enthusiastically.

"Don't be so rude to the beautiful lady," Sanji shouted at him as he sent a kick toward his captain.

"Tea is disgusting," said Lavi. "I would rather drink hot cocoa; with something sweet to eat too, please."

"Me too!" Chopper said enthusiastically.

"Wow," said Usopp. "She managed to be even ruder than Luffy."

"Huh?" Lavi questioned. "I was not rude! I said please!" She defended.

"That doesn't magically make everything polite!" Usopp told her. Lavi's expression shifted into one of confusion.

"Leave, Lavi-chan alone," Sanji said. "Her intentions were pure."

"It's quite alright," Shumi said with a giggle. "I'll be right back," she excused herself before heading into the house.

Lavi chose to sit down by Chopper on the porch's floor to impatiently wait for the snack, purposely keeping her distance from her brother. Though, with her brother being who he was, her intention proved to be in vain.

"This is so weird," Luffy commented as he sat down cross legged across from her on the dirt ground. "You're my little sister, but you're not supposed to be this little."

Lavi looked down at her hands in her lap, avoiding eye contact with her brother. She stared down at her palms; the back of her hands lay flat against her legs. She could feel the scrape that was still present on her right hand rubbing against the material of her makeshift clothing. She interpreted the slight sting that resulted from the action as nothing more than a reminder of how much weaker she was now.

She found herself glancing over at Chopper and then at Sanji, who stood only a few feet away, with the corner of her eye. She was surprised that neither the worrisome doctor nor the ever-hovering cook had noticed the injury yet. Not that she had given them much of a chance to since she had made sure to keep the keep her right hand out of both of their lines of sight.

Her eyes then briefly flickered up to Luffy, allowing herself a glimpse of the pirate, but she immediately regretted the action as she felt the guilt inside of her grow again.

Luffy had noticed that something was bothering his sister. He may not have been the most insightful person of the crew at times, but he had noticed her distance and silence and he knew his sister more than well enough to know that that wasn't normal for her. He knew that something was bothering her and he thought that he also knew what that something was.

"But it's okay," Luffy told Lavi with a grin. "'Cause you'll be back to normal real soon." Lavi wasn't surprised by her brother's reassurance; she had already expected him to be absolutely sure that things would turn out alright in the end; but still, she found herself comforted by it. "I'll make sure of it," Luffy continued with a grin on his face, "'Cause big brothers are supposed to take care of their little sisters."

Lavi's eyes widened as she looked up at her brother. She felt her heart flutter and her guilt ease as her eyes met his. She had heard that phrase come from Sabo countless times; had even heard Ace say it once. But never had Luffy ever said it to her—it was always her taking care of him, after all. Not the other way around.

"The drinks are ready," Shumi said as she stepped outside, snapping Lavi out of her stupor. The older woman held out the tray so that everyone could grab their drinks, lowering it to allow the smaller members of the crew to take theirs.

Lavi wrinkled her nose at the scent of the bitter tea and then silently cheered to herself when she grabbed hold of a cup of hot cocoa. Her eyes lit up as the tray, empty save for some cookies, was placed next to her. She slapped Luffy's hand away as soon as she saw it near the sweets.

"Ow," Luffy whined. "Why'd you hit me?"

"Because if I let you, you will take all of them," Lavi answered. Luffy pouted.

"But I'm hungry."

"So am I," Lavi said with a huff. "You can have some, but just do not take them all." Luffy groaned, but grabbed only three cookies off of the plate.

"Excuse me," Nami spoke up after taking a few sips of her tea, drawing everyone's attention to her. "We were wondering if you guys know anything about a man named Z?" She asked the woman.

"Z?" Said a gruff voice from behind them. They turned to look at the old man, Mobston, who also lived in the house. "So Z showed up again then."

"Old man, do you know Z?" Franky asked. Mobston nodded and moved to take a seat on the porch by his granddaughter, his grandson following right behind him.

"Many pirate ships have been attacked around here and come to these docks," Mobston explained. "All the injured pirates say they were attacked by Z."

"Grandpa told me that when customers come to the docks, they are all pirates saying that they were attacked by Z," said Shumi, who was now seated by her grandfather. "They come to fix their ships and use the docks. We receive the ships that have been totally destroyed by the marines. My grandpa was a sailor so he takes care of the pirates or anyone that comes with a problem."

"I only like people who risk their lives here in the New World," Mobston said, "searching for their dreams. Many were totally defeated by Z, lost their way, and abandoned the New World. Z is stealing man's freedom on the sea. Even if staying by their side is wrong, I won't accept that. If you were defeated by Z and even so you want to face him, I'd like to give you the strongest weapons I have stored."

"Strongest weapons?" Luffy asked excitedly.

"Amazing! A powerful weapon," Chopper cheered.

"Wait a second!" Said Nami, standing up.

"What, Nami?" Questioned Luffy. "He said the strongest! The strongest!"

"Before that we have to pursue Z. And with Z's attack our clothes were all burned. So we have to take care of that first. If we stay the whole time with these cherry blossom fantasies, we're going to raise suspicion when we are looking for information about him. First we have to gather information and clothes! The strongest weapons to defeat Z comes after that!"

"And sweets!" Added Lavi. "That comes before the strongest weapons too!" Nami sighed at the girl behind her.

"Excuse me," Nami said again to Shumi. "Do you have any big cities on this island where we can get some information and clothes?"

"This island has nothing besides our docks. How about you go to the neighboring island? They are very popular for their hot springs and volcanoes. And now there is a sea train passing through there; it has a lot of visiting people!"

"Sea train? Are you talking about that sea train?" Nami questioned.

"Yes," Shumi replied with a smile. "The next sea train should be coming soon so you might want to head over to the train's stop now." Nami nodded. She received the directions for how to get to the stop while everyone else readied themselves to go, except Franky who had decided to remain and continue repairing the Sunny.

"Alright!" Luffy shouted once everyone was set. "We'll be back for those strong weapons!" He waved at the small family as he and the others started to walk away.

Lavi smiled softly as she followed after her brother, no longer keeping a significant distance between the two of them. His words from earlier kept echoing in her head: " _Big brothers are supposed to take care of their little sisters._ "

Each time that she replayed the brief moment in her head, she felt a deep satisfaction grow inside of her—an unadulterated contentedness that, if only momentarily, pushed aside all of her negative feelings to the recesses of her mind; not that Lavi took any notice of that.

Even though her legs were now much, much shorter than Luffy's, Lavi still managed to catch up to her brother. Once she had, and was walking beside him, she reached up with her small arms and grabbed a hold of his right hand with her left one. Luffy grinned at her in response; an action that she more than gladly mirrored.

But that was all.

No words were exchanged between the pair as they made their way to the sea train's stop—not that the silence bothered either of them. Lavi, herself, didn't need Luffy to say anything else to her. She believed that the man had already done enough.

She adjusted the cap on her head with her right hand as she continued to think about her brother. He was, she thought, the only person who could effectively brighten her mood regardless of the situation. As she finished the thought, her eyes briefly flickered over to the blond who was lagging slightly behind her and her brother, walking beside the other two women of the crew. She shook her head after she looked away and then turned it back toward Luffy. She observed the way that Luffy's hand held her own and happily sighed.

Luffy was her treasure, she had concluded long ago, in the same way that the straw hat on his head was his; he was the most important thing in the world to her; he was her everything. And she was more than certain that that would never change.


End file.
